Breathless
by TheNewFrontiersman
Summary: Consequences. The ramifications of every one of our decisions and actions. Outside the pages of comic books, they are inevitable and uncompromising. In the end, Red Mist understood that. So did we.
1. The beginning

**Author's Note: **This story is a follow-up to the original Kick-Ass comic. Since the film adaptation had a significantly different set of story elements, we can call this the Comicverse. This story contains **Violence**, **Profanity** and all of the other things that make life bearable for some of us. Please review after you've read. I accept all forms of criticism with an open mind.

~:~:~:~:~  
**Breathless.  
**~:~:~:~:~

You might be interested to know that every hopeful career of every impressionable teenager that ever watched _C.S.I._ or _Cold Case _would be crushed the moment they understood what blood smelled like. Not a papercut or a scrape or even the dirty wounds anyone that tries to ride their bike on gravel is destined to experience. The wounds with the dirt and grime so deeply laced into the torn skin that the future's salves and creams are replaced with nightmares of perscription antibiotics, amputations and infectious diseases.

You might also be interested to know that the pint you gave at the office or at school for that free concert ticket cannot help some people. The doctors call it Exsanguination. Common people call it bleeding out. Sometimes, you've lost too much blood.

You might also be interested to know that sometimes you lose enough blood to stop living, but not enough to die.

My feud with the dryer continues, and after ten minutes plucking every last fiber from the lint trap, my sweater is still damp. There's nothing better to wear, and it's not damp enough to show, but it only reminds me of how cold it can feel in November. The real chill comes from thinking about the winter right around the corner.

In any class before 2008, there was a chalkboard, and a teacher and sometimes even a filmstrip or a boring, badly-acted educational video. In this new decade, there's the same Dell computer you saw a commercial for two years ago and a password made up of your initials. Six in the class figure out the Admin's use of the same password scheme the first day, and two weeks later, they've finished six courses in under 10 minutes each. Mensa would be proud, but the ultimatum issued on the bulletin board threatens a deeper search if someone doesn't confess.

This system was created because someone decided that teachers were high-strung enough having to put up with the alarmingly high generations of failures once, and someone else decided that if everyone could not be smart, we all had to be led by the hand through an educational system that once had clout.

With 5 weeks left, I'm behind. People assume because you spend a lot of time on your computer, you must be kin to the machines. They never consider that it's cheaper to download your favorite game than to buy it for a console that never works right with a controller you buy fresh batteries for every two days.

I minimize the window and dig out a sheet of fresh notebook paper. Pen against line, in my dignified chicken scratch, creating rough edges to mask the fact that I have never been one to stay inside of the proverbial or literal lines.

Someone sees my amateur artwork and presses a palm down on the corner of the paper, sliding it away from my pen. I shrink back into my work while he turns it over and states, "People still talk about this one, huh? They're a dime a dozen these days, aren't they?"

He sets the paper back down at my elbow, and I let it fall to the floor. Some days, I can't wait to get back into the suit that generates Ad Revenue on Youtube, countless misspelled potential memes on UrbanDictionary, or the source of most of my sketches when I'm supposed to be working towards a degree in Psychology.

When I was in the seventh grade, I wanted to take German. "Take Spanish." My father insisted. "Nobody in this country knows German unless their head is shaved. There's Hispanics everywhere. Who do you think built this apartment building?"

Stereotypes are not lost on the weary. For someone that has seen what people are and what they're capable of, it's a compensation.

**_Patrolls and stuff tonight_**, Laser Man tweets. The interwebs demand bad grammar. _**Sleep tonight. Saving lives tomorrow**_, Reaper tells the world. Sometimes, I'm ashamed to subscribe to these people, but clicking YES on the emails seemed like a good idea at the time. It goes on and on every night, and it seems that I miss everything worthwhile when I sleep.

Red Mist. Last active on Myspace, Facebook, Twitter and Usenet... 07/09/09. A blog was sketched on the former two pages that final day, promising revenge and loss to the **SAD** and **ALONE** Kick-Ass, he promised. Christopher Genovese doesn't have a Myspace, a Facebook, a Twitter or Usenet account. His shining achievement on the internet is a fossilized Youtube page from 2006 that features a Poison music video and a few pixelated clips of old Justice League episodes. His password is Chris123. I rid the world of the museum piece and feel a bit better.

Does he know who Kick-Ass is? If he did, I would probably be less concerned with whatever he's planning. The internet community at large still wonders why the hate. Word around the campfire allows them relief in piecing their own story together from countless gossips about a feud between heroes, villains, lovers or something in between.

John Genovese was one of 34 bodies they pulled from what was left of the Penthouse that night. After the fire stopped burning and the fire department tore down what had once been an ornate ceiling with a chandelier outside of the elevator, the forensics people had a mess to deal with. The cadavers were rotting by the time the scene was declared safe. A 9mm round had shattered his testicles. A meat cleaver had been imbedded four inches horizontally into his skull. Men in every department laughed and joked about the dead scumbags, chiding their peers that accepted wintergreen oil for their nostrils before entering the scene and swapping lies about how much pussy their were getting while they bagged and tagged every person the world wouldn't miss. The smell of blood would never come out.

A frantic building operator of a neighboring tower had called in the blaze at 1:13am. At 1:25am, as the responding officials pounded on the door and prepared the battering ram, a security feed from the parking garage exterior caught the last glimpse of that familiar Mist Mobile as it turned out of the basement vehicle haven and casually sailed into the night, past the sirens and flashing red and blue lights. Nobody watched that feed, but somehow, a black and white security still of the blood-splattered Green and Purple duo had leaked, adding to the speculation that the official story of gang-related violence was no more believed by the police than it was by anyone else.

It's past 2am when I turn off my computer, but I cannot sleep. It's been almost a year since that day, and I begin my almost daily period of self-criticism and mirror gazing at this point, looking at scars that will never heal, letting fingertips touch pale spots of skin below scraggly blonde hair and feel stitches and metal underneath, the organic feel of bone is no longer a friend to my skull, but my mind is intact. I remember everything, and I don't want to. What's worse is I know that I can't stop.

While I lay on the bed and my father shuffles another package through the UPS mail room at his graveyard-shift job of underappreciated civil service, he pays no mind to the package on it's way to a certain Apartment #43, addressed to a certain M. Macready, the return address spot marked only with a familiar red symbol.

After a few hours of uneasy sleep, I get up with the sun and forage for a makeshift breakfast, determined to leave before my father arrives. My schedule puts me out the door today on time to catch my first class, but I dig into my ever-expanding bag of excuses and scrawl a note for the fridge. We have become 'one of those' families. The ones whose communication takes place in text messages and notes on the fridge. UrbanDictionary doesn't have a name for them yet, but I submitted FridgeNote Family last night.

It's almost 8am when I finally make my way onto the street. This time of the morning, the only people on the street are AM commuters or unemployed addicts, sliding out of their highs and unwilling to face the reality of the sun rising.

I have begun morning patrols since I finished the stitching on my new mask. The old one sits in a dusty corner under my bed I am still pestered daily to clean, torn down the left cheek, still held together with a scrap of dirty tape. The suit could not be entirely replaced after that Recession everyone keeps talking about reached the home front, and a new blue card that only seems to work on the 10th of every month appeared in Dad's wallet.

The utility belt was orange when I bought it, a convention piece that had the bonus of being made of real material instead of cheap plastic. I spray painted it the same color as the boots and gloves, grafting it onto the torn midsection of the suit. My dad knew that I hauled Mom's old sewing machine out from the things he refuses to throw away, but he didn't say anything. Maybe he thought it was my new coping device. I filled the pouches on the belt with anything I could acquire from a long list I wrote one late night, brainstorming through my favorite personal effects of Superheroes. The problem is thinking realistically, and thinking on a budget.

This is what I do. This is who I am, and what I have created. Once on Jay Leno, the high-collared writer of some new bestseller joked that many of the costumed vigilantes in the USA only needed an excuse to vent their mental, emotional and sexual frustrations on the world, and Kick-Ass gave them that.

Nobody shed a tear for the world that was left behind, and nobody ever would. There was no grand conspiracy, no Allegiance of Heroes and no secret hideout where the masks met and pumped their fists in the air about changing this or saving that. Everyone does what they feel they have to, and sometimes, one of us gets hurt.

There was a man later identified as Trent Shaw, age 28, who sold his soul to the tabloids and revealed _himself _as Kick-Ass. He was dismissed after the tabloids released a picture of him, and nobody was willing to believe that Kick-Ass could weigh 320 pounds.

There was Captain Justice, who carried a modified shotgun that launched homemade tear gas. After he was shot and tossed from the second story window of a tenement in the Bronx, his only satisfaction was that his alter ego, Richard Maynes, would finally be removed from the Sex Offender Registry.

The anti-vigilante groups got a lot of mileage out of that one, and Captain Justice would always be remembered as a 'fraud', and not for the people he had helped.

After all, redemption is only redemption if someone makes money off it in this world.

Richard Maynes was a convicted offender of Statutory Rape. Nobody seemed to mind that his 'victim' was the same woman that would give birth to his second child without him. His wife of 11 years. Aged 17 at the time of their forbidden consensual encounter. To the world, Captain Justice would be another lunatic.

This is the future meant for us. Ostracism, ridicule. Violence and death. Not always in the same order.

Sixty-two miles away, an 11-year-old girl with a scar on her cheek opens a package with a red symbol on the return address line.

The knife she retrieves from the kitchen has an all-too-familiar weight in her hand. Even after so many months in the 'normal' life society indoctrines us to lead, it is an extension of her body. The package is opened with the precision of a sober surgeon.

The first object in sight is a hairbrush, and it serves as a fitting projectile to shatter the living room mirror. The television isn't so easy. The stand weighs more than the modern LCD, but after a strong kick, it topples over. The overpriced flat-panel survives this, but the next blow is a stomp, directly through the front of the screen. The wall dividing the living room and the kitchen is dented as the coffee table is hauled up on one side and thrown across the room.

The rest of the living room suffers a similar fate. The rampage continues through the house, and when Mrs. Natalie Macready Shelton arrives home, the 11-year-old girl with a scar on her cheek is gone. The box is still on the floor in front of the sofa.

What was inside of the box is gone. Only destruction remains, a sign of her passing.

_"Nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer; nothing is more difficult than to understand him._"  
~Fyodor Dostoevsky~


	2. Green and purple

~:~:~:~  
**Kick-Ass.  
**~:~:~:~

I turned off text notification after the first week of having a Myspace profile. I wasn't paranoid about a trace. I was sick of having to empty my inbox every 45 minutes to make room.

Kick-Ass has millions of friends on Myspace. How many of them have ever hurt someone weaker? Taken what didn't belong to them? Done terrible things? It is the anonymity of the internet's double edged Damocles sword dangling over my bedroom ceiling, ready to fall at any moment like the proverbial plane engine.

Wake up, Dave.

The Inbox has 41 messages. The price I pay for lapsing a day in my Myspace routine. Spam. Junk. Fan Mail. Important Message.

The latter is simple and sweet. It demands compliance, not a questioning reply.

_Sarmentosa & Del Rio._

_1am. HG._

I would think this was a trap if it didn't come from 11-year-old Mindy Macready's account instead of the countless superhero fan pages. I get meeting requests. I ignore almost all of them. This one demands attention.

Mindy Macready.

Hit-Girl.

The daughter of Damon, the accountant with a death wish. A million possibilities of the how and why flood my rattled mind.

The only thing to do is go. Go and talk her out of whatever she has in mind before she gets herself killed. Maybe I can help. That's what I do, after all.

~:~:~:~

Dad's cooking expertise extends from the top of the stove to the microwave oven. Anything made inside of the oven is undercooked or dry. The toaster shocks us every time we use it. Budget Gourmet's $0.88 line includes Italian pastas. The rubbery taste of the imitation ethnicity brings memories of a certain Genovese family back to my mind.

For a long, painful and uncomfortable moment, my balls shrivel inside of my pants at the thought.

"It's nice to talk sometimes, Dave. We don't do that much anymore."

I drop my fork and look at him. I open my mouth to deny and explain that we are getting along fine, but I can't pull up a memorable exchange of words between now and about four months ago, when I told him about the water spot on the bathroom ceiling.

We have become 'one of those families'. It can't be denied.

"Dad, I... well, I guess we've just been busy. Your schedule's tight with work and I have school and... school." I stammer and study the inside of the cardboard dish the microwave dinner comes in.

"What about friends? When was the last time you talked to one of them?" His gaze is a laser beam, focused on me now. He is asking all the questions he knows the answers to. It's not a test. It's an interrogation, skewed.

"I talk to my friends." I defend.

"Okay, son." He says dismissively. I'm suddenly not so hungry anymore.

"If you think we don't talk enough, then we can talk, Dad. What do you want to talk about? I've decided what my New Year's Resolution is going to be."

"To stay out of the hospital until the next New Year?" He asks with an air of dry cynicism.

"I was actually considering that, but I think I know what I want it to be now."

"What do you want it to be?"

"I want things to change... I want to make things change. I want to move on."

He doesn't understand the weight of the statement. When can I stop living this life? I am a victim of Second Movie disease. I suddenly think about quitting the job.

So did Tobey Maguire. So did Christopher Reeve. If the grosses had been more impressive, Ben Affleck would too.

Comparing myself to Seabiscuit's jockey and Gigli has suddenly become the emotional peak of my teenage life. 17 years old. I should be worried about getting a job and finding wheels. I should be slacking off in senior year instead of putting in extra hours in Credit Recovery.

I should be a normal person, right?

That's not what I want to be.

"Dave."

I realize that I've been staring into space. Minutes at least. His dinner's almost gone. I poke at mine with the fork. It's cold by now.

"Yes?"

"Just remember that I love you. Whatever you decide to do in life. Just do what you believe is right."

I am almost concerned about Dad going to work tonight. In a comic book or comic book movie, he will die in less than ten pages slash minutes after a sappy bomb of expository goo like that one.

~:~:~:~

Sarmentosa & Del Rio is an intersection in a quiet part of the city. At 1:01am, the only noise I can hear is the wind, newspapers dancing through the air, trash cans wobbling on their bent metal rims. It's the sounds of the night. The soundtrack to my life.

A brunette girl steps out from the darkness and stops a few feet from me. Mindy Macready exists inside of this light disguise, made of a wig and colored contacts that have turned her pupils a dull, dark green.

"Be glad you're not in their address book. They must be blowing up the phone of everybody from A-F right now, the objective being Z by sunrise." She leans against the dumpster and look at me. This is the girl who saved my life... twice. The girl who has caused more deaths than World Of Warcraft. The girl who asked me for a hug after her Daddy had died.

"They wouldn't look for you in the city." I say. "You don't need the new look."

"Not them I'm worried about. Christopher Genovese will be looking for me... and you now."

"Why?"

~:~:~:~**  
Hit-Girl.  
**~:~:~:~

The mask was red and it looked like a miniature shield when I took it out of the box. Dad loved it. He looked at himself in the mirror for an hour with it in different poses.

When my father was last seen by yours truly, I was being shot out of a window. I never saw his mask again. I assumed it had been discarded by someone, or maybe even claimed with his silver case by Red Mist.

Kick-Ass told me the silver case was full of comics. At least a cool million worth. Enough to fund a grand revenge scheme? For one with the right connections.

The mask was in the box I opened. The symbol on the label was the symbol of the one taunting me. I was playing right into his hands, but he wasn't going to have any more correct predictions about me.

I've tried to adjust for months. Go to school and try to stay awake through classes about math and science and social studies. Even units on the American wars of history are boring.

The resources are the definition of limited. My routine changes, and I feel myself becoming soft. In a way, I'm almost relieved when I get the package.

Now he's going to try and talk me out of it. He knows he'll fail, but he tries. The Little Engine That Couldn't.

I remember Kick-Ass well. It's hard to forget memories that crop up on a daily basis with the subtlety of a meat tenderizer to the face.

He has an anti-charm that I can't ignore, and he's supposed to be the 'grown-up' in this situation, but where does the line between child and adult blur? Is accepting your likely death in the face of a task not adult enough for this world? It must not be. People in society hide from those kind of situations every day.

If living means being safe, I died a long time ago.

~:~:~:~**  
Kick-Ass.  
**~:~:~:~

She holds the mask between two fingers, as if it's the dead carcass of a scraped-up piece of roadkill that she doesn't want to touch. I recognize it and can only nod. I don't have to ask how she got it, but she tells me.

She tells me and the whole time, she toys with those knives of hers. Even in casual clothes, I know she has at least four different weapons on her person. This girl has not changed at all.

I'm scared.

"He wants you to try to find him." I tell her.

"No shit. I'm going to let him find me."

"You can't do that."

"Cliche, cliche. Tell me why I can't."

The argument is non-existent. She is a stone and I am a brick, lobbed at her foundation. Rigid and set, she can't be talked out of this in any scenario of realism.

"If he's trying to find me too... I would rather we're not caught alone." I say.

"You're suggesting we pool bullets for this one." She crosses one leg over the other as the dim alley light above the dumpster she leans against sparks and fizzles from a dying bulb.

"I'm suggesting we form a plan."

"I already have a plan. It's a simple plan, just like Iraq."

The ultra-conservative indoctrination is not a faded memory for her.

"Just promise me that you'll let me help you when the time comes." I have accepted that I can't talk her out of this. At this moment, I picture the moment of my death with an existential, rehabilitating sense of clarity.

"I brought you here to warn you, not to drag you into it."

"It wasn't your father's idea to drag me and Red Mist into 'it' back then, was it? It was yours." I say, on the fifth word when I regret the statement I utter.

The kick to my knee misses the cap by a centimeter, splitting open the scarred and puffy tissue around the bend of my leg and drawing fresh blood. The punch is to my face. I raise a forearm to block, and she spins, kicking me in the sternum.

My torso feels like it has collapsed. Gasping for air, I fall back to the ground in the alley. I reach for my sticks, but they're on the alley floor, dislodged from the harness on my back during my tumble. She grabs one and swings, nailing me in the side of the head. I block the next swing and punch her in the stomach. She winces and cracks me on the skull with the weapon next. I roll forward, unfazed by the strike to my mostly-numb skull at this point, running on adrenaline.

I grab the other baton and swing as she does. She's thrown off balance, and I grab her arm, shoving her down.

"Wait! Stop it!" I yell out. She kicks me in the balls. I stagger back, my stomach deflating. I grab her arm on the next swing and punch her in the face, hearing a crunch. She grasps her face and twists her fingers. I hear her nose snap back into place, but it doesn't stop the blood from leaking from her nostrils in long, fast drips. I drop the baton to the ground.

"Don't talk about my father." She mutters through a mouthful of blood. She spits and wipes her hands on the jeans she's wearing, leaving bloody fingerprints like the red fingerpaintings of a girl half her age.

"Understood." I gasp out, trying not to vomit with the sick pain rushing through my body. "You didn't have to kick me in the balls."

"I guess it wasn't called for. I guess that makes us even." She says.

At the end of the alley, a red sports car turns on it's headlights. The radio blasts Slayer, and the driver puts his foot on the gas.

_"Words are the counters of wise men, and the money of fools."_  
~Thomas Hobbes~


	3. Teenage car-songs

~:~:~:~**  
Kick-Ass.  
**~:~:~:~

The pain in my chest has become a dull ache, likewise for the pain between my legs that has crept into my lower gut and yanked on my insides. Hit-Girl looks at me for another moment before she speaks, but I can't hear what she says. Light is thrown into the mouth of an alley, and in a moment, I know who is driving the car barreling towards us right now.

I run forward and grab her around the middle, a football tackle where subtlety cannot be used. The car nicks the back of my leg, drawing a small chunk of meat and leaving the sick, warm trickle of blood down the back of my leg. I lean against the wall of the alcove and look at her. "Fence at the end of the alley. Run." I say. She is reaching into the back of her pants for a pistol. I slap it away.

The car spins around, the headlights centered on us, blinding me through the slit in my mask. I grab her handgun from the ground and push her in the opposite direction.

"Run!" I yell. My throat clenches shut as the lights barrel down on me.

~;~;~;~**  
Red Mist.**  
~:~:~:~

Remember when you were younger, and you always wondered why your parents wouldn't let you do some things, or made you do things you didn't want to do?

Eat your vegetables.  
They're good for you.  
Put that down. You don't know where it's been.  
Don't pick at that. It will never heal.  
Don't get yourself killed trying to fill the hole when I'm gone.  
Just be a strong man, Chris.

It's easy when they tell you themselves. They answer the question with the presence they have in your life. If they're the kind of parent who always cut your sandwich the way you liked, or smiled at your hobbies and talents.

My father was a man of business. He did things that I never saw myself doing. Things that I didn't disapprove of as strongly as others did, but never saw myself in... I fantasized. Sure, who didn't? The next best thing to being a superhero would be being Scarface... minus the life-dismantling drug habit and dying in a blaze of glory.

I never felt closer to him than the night he told me, in his own blunt fashion, that my interest in comics had finally paid off. I watched that little prick Kick-Ass squirm and beg while Dad's favorite torture-on-hire rigged him up with electrodes. Dad didn't want me staying for the show, and he was the only thing that could have dragged me away from watching that amateur fry.

Then he was dead. The rest of them were too. All his friends. All the men he called my 'uncles' and their sons my 'cousins', most of them not even related to us. The only ones left were the ones that had retired a long time ago. The ones in their 60's that had spent 20 years living comfortably straddling the middle-class line and watched him run the show. Some of them would swear they had more rights to the seat than he or I ever did.

After he died, they stepped up and told me what he wanted me to do, if he ever didn't live to see me figure it out on my own.

He didn't want me to take over the business. He wanted me to let it slide into the hands of his closest associates... whichever ones were still breathing, and live the rest of my life with a head-start from his retirement fund.

Of course, they didn't ask. They told. Maybe their eyes lit up like dollar signs when he died. They knew they had an opportune chance to take the businesses over.

They can have it.

When I'm done.

The first length is just for show. He gets out of the way, and she's with him. I turn around, turning the radio volume to crank up the Slayer song. I haven't worn the Red Mist suit in months, save the rare pose in the mirror as I spent a lot of time thinking about what I was going to do.

_You know the feeling  
When adrenaline takes control  
Can't beat the rush  
That leaves a suicidal hold_

He pushes her out of the way and grabs on the ground for something. I spin the wheel and line up with his form in the headlights.

No. Not yet. Play with him for a moment.

I rev forward and slam on the brakes. I can't stop smiling. I know why my Dad enjoyed making people scared of him now. In reverse, then forward again. He fires at the car, and I watch a small dent and foggy, round ricochet form in the bulletproof glass in front of my passenger seat. He's a terrible shot, and the Mist Mobile has seen some upgrades. The windshield is bulletproof, the new capback system has made the Mist Mobile louder for theatrical effect, and also added about five horsepower to the roaring V8 engine.

_Instinct spares no one  
Destroying the human heart  
The taste of blood  
Can rip your soul apart_

I spin the wheel to the right and line up with the girl. She's not in costume, but it won't make this any less satisfying. I speed towards her. He screams something, undoubtedly the cliched "No!" in slow motion, but I can't hear him over the rev of the car.

As I speed past him and anticipate the thump of a 12-year old creation beneath the Pirelli tires I swung for, the back window shatters. Fuck! That glass isn't bulletproof. Surprised, I swerve to the left. The front of the car slams into the side of the alley, the back bumper hitting the opposite side, wedging me diagonally in the space.

_Devils that drive us  
Do not discriminate__  
A state of mind  
That becomes the ultimate end_

Kick-Ass runs towards the car. Now this is what I'm talking about. I open the door. To the right, she reaches the fence at the end of the alley and vaults over it with skill to spare.

She'll be back.

~:~:~:~  
**Kick-Ass.**  
~:~:~:~

_Action reaction  
Blood line is not immune  
To the depth of human nature  
Inside of me and you_

Christopher gets out of the car. The door is open, bits of glass scattered across the back of the car and across the upholstery. The radio still blasts away, adding a soundtrack cue that would underscore our epic battle, if I wasn't holding a gun and he wasn't.

One chance.

I raise the gun and fire, stepping forward and to the left, watching Hit-Girl vanish over the fence and leave us to our reunion.

_A sociopath with empty eyes  
And no soul  
Paranoid psychotic heart of stone  
My blood runs cold_

The round slams into his chest. He gets up, clutching himself for a moment, and I can tell he's smiling, even at this distance.

"10 thou' for a custom-fit vest, punk. Try again."

The gun's empty anyway. I toss it, looking at it on the ground for a moment. He steps closer, hands in fists at his sides.

_Evils of passion  
Can drive reason to extremes  
Love hate and murder  
Temporary insanity_

"I'm not going to walk away and trust the underlings to do their job this time, Kick-Ass. I'm going to watch you die." He speaks the cliche with such a confident air that I am reminded of the antics of a cinematic clown with a penchant for chaos.

Not enough time to turn and run. I can't even think of it now. Adrenaline flows through my body, my right leg shaking below me.

"You're welcome to try." I mutter, trying to sound tougher than I am.

~:~:~:~  
**Hit-Girl.**  
~:~:~:~

So there he is. Red Mist.

Kick-Ass pushes me towards the alley, screaming for me to run. I want to grab the gun back and take care of this now, but I don't have a chance.

My dad always told me to never look back. Never stop. Don't move in a straight line. Fitting any defensive situation. The fence rattles as I climb over it, losing my balance and landing hard on the other side. Pulling myself from a pile of flattened cardboard, I stand up.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

He's going to die.

I climb back over the fence after 20 precious seconds of safety.

~:~:~:~  
**Red Mist.**  
~:~:~:~

The faggot does the first thing I expect. What every faggot with a gun does. The round strikes, absorbed by the vest under my suit well enough to throw me off my feet, intact nontheless.

I get up and approach him. He drops the gun and walks towards me, answering my taunts with his own.

I'm going to enjoy this.

The first punch is to his face. He steps back, dodging by luck. I throw another punch and follow with a kick, driving him into the alley wall. One of his trademark batons is splinters in the gutter, run over during my first drive through the alley. The other one lays against the wall. He dives for it and my foot hits brick.

My ankle almost breaks when I kick the wall. It takes a second to regain my balance. He grabs the baton and swings at me. His swings are clumsy and predictable, but he has more energy, dredged up from his limited reserves.

I put an arm over my head to block the last of the swings, and a bullet whizzes past my ear.

"Motherfucker!" She snarls, stepping forward as she fires with her spare gun. She doesn't have a hope of hitting me at that distance with a .25, but it's all that can fit in a shoe. I jump back in the car and spin back to face the alley, the front and back of my car are now dented, scratched and in the case of my front bumper, mangled. I consider screaming "Another time, Kick-Ass!" Into the night as I drive away, but it's too cliche. A simple hand thrust out the window, middle finger extended. They get the message.

I'll have another chance. I'm a villain now, after all.

~:~:~:~  
**Kick-Ass.**  
~:~:~:~

I get the sense of winning at something for the first time in a long time, but it's short-lived. Hit-Girl interrupts us, and a moment later, Christopher speeds away in the ride of his 'heroic' alter-ego.

"Thanks." I say as she meets me back in the center of the alley. Her nose is still dripping blood. I pick up the .45 and hand it to her. She racks the slide and ejects the round that has jammed inside of the feed chamber. There are still two rounds in the clip. She empties it and slaps a fresh one in, turning it over and holding it out.

"Take it." She mutters, licking blood from her top lip. "You'll need it. I can't always be around to save your ass."

"I was doing fine..." I take the gun, putting it in my belt. At the time, I don't know why. "Thanks, I guess."

She goes to the end of the alley and looks around the corner. "Looks like we don't have to look for him now."

Oh, the irony.

~:~:~:~  
**Hit-Girl.**  
~:~:~:~

I stood in this room almost a year ago. I remember the bed was in the center then, and it was cleaner.

Big Daddy held Kick-Ass down and explained to him how we did things. I was sure that he would go for the plans we had. He was supposed to be the original real-life superhero, after all.

I learned the truth soon enough. He's not a superhero.

Neither was my father. They were the same.

People with passion about something, who took it too far.

Kick-Ass doesn't hurt anyone when he gets himself busted up, except for a hardworking father he never talks about and himself.

I'll never be popular in school.

I'll never be in the student council.

I'll never wear a dress to prom.

I'll never be one of those normal girls with insecurities and worries about their skin and their boyfriends and this term paper and that teacher they're hot for.

When I stood at my father's grave, Dave stood beside me and told me that we are who we choose to be.

That's not true.

We are who the world forces us to be.

Who we have to be to survive.

He takes off his mask and sits on the bed. He looks at me and puts on his glasses. Nobody would ever suspect this kid of being the original real-life superhero. Dungeon Master is a possibility. He takes the remaining stick from the harness on his back and lays it across his lap, staring at it as if holding a moment of silence for it's destroyed twin.

"Tell me what we're going to do." He says.

"Who said anything about we, Kick-Ass?"

"Christopher did, when he tried to kill us tonight."

"It wasn't completely personal. He's holding back for a reason."

"I figured that out when he didn't flatten us both when he had the chance." Dave says. "Unless you've got another Hello Kitty bag full of mischief, we're going to have to hope he's in a playful mood next time we meet."

"Then we better get going." I say.

"Go where?" He sits up.

"Self-Storage on 6th and Dodd. Number 318." I take the key out of my pocket and toss it to him. He looks at it and I can feel his mind clicking behind his eyes. Uncomfortable silence, and a pause.

"Let's go." He says.

_"A good man would prefer to be defeated than to defeat injustice by evil means._"  
~Sallust~


	4. When time stands still

~:~:~:~  
**Kick-Ass.**  
~:~:~:~

"Tell me what it was like."

"What 'what' was like?"

"Being normal."

World War III is in this cube.

The clerk wouldn't remember the transaction among the day-in day-out of his normal, uninteresting life, even if the false ID used gave the name Matt Murdock and the man paid $1,582 and change in cash to secure #318 for 24 months.

While Damon Macready signed his name as the blind lawyer of Hell's Kitchen on the dotted line, his daughter sat in the car outside, drawing devil horns on a picture of Nancy Pelosi.

The storage space hasn't been disturbed since. Large black boxes are stacked on either side. In the middle, a tarp covers something sitting on two wooden blocks. The single 100-watt light bulb in the center of the storage space's ceiling throws shadows across the entire cluttered space. It's the neatest mess I've ever seen.

She yanks the tarp off and smiles, touching the motorcycle underneath with an affectionate palm. At the back of the storage space are two grey cases. One is full of tools. The other is full of parts.

"Rebuild it. Get mobile. Do circles around Red Mist and his fancy car." She says, looking back at me.

"Tell me what it was like. Being normal." I string my last two statements together, taking the top black box from the left pile and opening it. Each box has four layers, spaced apart with sheets of wood. The first is six handguns. The second is six more. The next are revolvers, and the last one is machine pistols.

The next box is wider, and inside each layer are rifles. The guns need to be cleaned and oiled before they can see action. The next box is grenades. Hand grenades. Smoke grenades. Even flashbangs.

The last box of the left pile contains two black satchels. Inside both are large packages of brown, putty-like plastic explosive. The pockets of the satchels contain detonators and other tools.

In two tall garment bags hanging on hooks behind the pile of boxes, there's spare outfits. Belts and masks and all the wardrobe of comic conventions. There's even a tube of spirit gum. Dried out, of course.

Money is all she take. Bills, large and small and wrapped in cardboard strips that spell the stack counts in bold, printed letters in a plastic bag behind those.

Picture an eleven-year old walking the streets of New York with a hundred grand in her pockets.

The right pile is no doubt more of the same, and it's enough to wage war with the world.

"It was boring." She says, taking out a gun and twirling it around her finger, clutching it for a moment to wiggle the hammer lock with her thumb.

"Boring?" I guess I have forgotten what it means.

"Get up every morning and go to school. Do papers and take tests and pop quizzes about bullshit... I learned what they wanted me to, and then I forgot it. It was just useless."

"Some people would love a normal routine."

"Not me."

It's almost 4am now. In three hours, I'm supposed to be slapping the snooze on my alarm clock.

"Let's close this up. We can come back for what we need tomorrow."

She nods and throws the tarp back over. I close the boxes and stack them back up. I can imagine stacking these in my closet, where my back issues used to be, next to my old train sets.

I close the door and lock it, handing her the key. The yard behind the storage facility is a bare patch of dirt with a few rocks and sticks among the weeds and broken bottles.

Maybe there's routine in Heaven.

"Are you going back to your Mom's... or do you need somewhere to stay?" I ask.

She picks up a rock and tosses it at one of the dimming streetlamps. It's a lucky shot. The glass cracks and the light inside fizzles.

"I can't go back. I probably hated it there more than school."

"You told me that you wanted to be normal."

"I was wrong. I tried. It didn't work out. Time to move on."

"Doesn't sound like moving on, Hit-Girl. Sounds like moving back."

"At least I'm moving, Kick-Ass."

"What does that make the past eight months then? An extended vacation?"

"Waiting for the right time to get back to work."

"Your dad made the entire thing up, remember?" I anticipate another attack. I'm running on fumes and my entire body aches from the night's happenings. "...your mom's alive, and he's not. He lied to you. You don't have a villain."

"You do."

~;~;~;~

It was my mother's favorite room in the apartment. It had a table and a round platform on a stand where she did her sewing and her drawing. There was a pottery wheel once. The cabinets are still there, and now, like the rest of the room, they're full of junk.

The pottery wheel is still there, the top cracked from a slip during my daily efforts to reach the cabinets as a youngster.

Ten minutes on the hand pump, and the air mattress is full. Moving the junk to one side of the room, I lay it down. I hand her a blanket and pillow from the closet in the hall.

"My dad is going to be home in about 3 hours. He doesn't have his day job today. I'm going to try to catch some sleep before school. Don't worry. He never comes in here. Just don't wake him."

She puts her hand on my arm when I turn to shut off the light.

"I've saved your life enough times... but you saved me tonight. Thanks." She can't keep eye contact for the last few words.

There's nothing else to say. I head to bed and fall asleep two minutes later from exhaustion.

At 7am, I slap the snooze button and roll over. At 7:10, I wake up and go through my morning routine. I consider asking her to join me on my morning patrol, but compared to what she's done, it's kid's stuff. Amateur work.

My dad gets home late by his schedule. He crashes on the sofa and falls asleep during one of his shows. While he sleeps, an eleven-year-old girl sleeps in his Pandora's Room on the floor.

~:~:~:~  
**Hit-Girl.**  
~:~:~:~

Sleeping on an air mattress reminds me of being with my Daddy. We slept in a lot of places. Motels. Hotels. One time we squatted in a half-built apartment for two weeks, sleeping on mattresses just like this on the floor while he scoped out a low-level Mob enforcer's place across the street.

I've learned to be a very light sleeper. Some nights I wake up with the shakes. Some nights I dream so deep that when I wake up, I realize it's just that. I wake up when Kick-Ass... Dave... leaves for his patrol in the morning. I wake up when his father gets home, stamping his boots on the tile as he passes just a few feet away from where I'm laying.

He goes into the next room, and I fall back asleep. When I wake up again, it's later in the day. I feel like I slept too long. I climb up on top of a few boxes and open the window, peeking out. The gap between this window and the exterior vent is too small to squeeze through. I chance the front door, walking quietly past the TV room while Mr. Lizewski sleeps in front of the box.

I break a 100$ bill at the Indian market on the corner. In the city, weirder things are done by people my age. I sit outside on the curb and set the bag next to me, unwrapping a piece of beef jerky. A police car drives by. The last thing I need is to be questioned by a truant officer, but luck is with me. Brunettes don't stand out. Wigs are useful.

All those weapons. All those things we can use, and Dave... Kick-Ass... doesn't want to go through with what I want to do. He knows what I want to do. Load up and wait for Red Mist to return. Splatter his brains across a brick wall in a dark alley somewhere and let the police make up their own story. They're good at convincing themselves about it. Sometimes the theories are really out there. Sometimes they're simple.

He wants to wait. He wants to wait and see what will happen. The .45 is still in the desk in his room. Maybe he'll press it to my head and tell me I'm going back to my Mother's. That I'm going to stop this nonsense and stop pretending to be an 'adult like him'. That's what everyone older says. Being looked down on happens so often that I barely notice it, and I miss it when it doesn't happen.

I walk back to the storage place and open up #318. The yard behind the storage place is surrounded by a fence. A fence that's broken and leaning and in shambles, but it's a fence, and I need somewhere quiet to work. I haul out the bike and the tools. It was drained clean before being put into storage.

After several attempts and two bloody, scraped fingers, I manage to tighten the stored wheels on properly. I walk to the closest gas station and take back containers of gas, oil and cleaning supplies. The high school dropout behind the scratchy plexiglass pops a wad of gum large enough to choke a mule and doesn't look at me twice. I could buy beer from here if I wanted to.

When I'm finished, it's past 3 and the bike looks good as new. I can't take it out in the daytime, so I have no choice but to wheel it back into the storage unit and throw the tarp back over it.

Tonight I'll put Red Mist between crosshairs. With or without Kick-Ass.

~:~:~:~  
**Kick-Ass.**  
~:~:~:~

Katie Deauxma walks past me in the hall outside of the Technology wing. She doesn't look away instinctively. Almost a year ago, I would have probably snapped one off at the thought, but now I'm just wondering what the entire point was.

I spent a long time pretending I was something I wasn't, in order to get the girl.

I still pretend. I still pretend to be Dave Lizewski.

Television makes me tired. First period is a television special on the design of a better box for the American cheeseburger. Disease must be served at an acceptable temperature, according to standards. At the beginning of second period, the first round of video announcements starts, informing everyone in the student body that there will be no after-school practice today for the Swim Team, and asking for the return of a small red wallet with a Decepticon sticker. The wallet is long gone. Everyone knows that.

Lost in oblivion, I nap off the lack-of-sleep-headache in third period and wake up with the tabletop pressing a red palm into my cheek. I've missed another video, apparently. Lunch is around the corner, and Katie Deauxma is looking at me again.

Toddy leans across my arm and taps me on the side of the head. I jump. I was content to just sit here for a while and look back at her.

"If you're looking to relapse in metrosexuality, I think she's moved on, bud."

"She's looking at me."

"Everyone's looking at you, bud. You look like shit. You have for weeks. Some of them are saying you're hanging out with the burners now."

I understand the mentality here. Repressed homosexual Dave Lizewski. Victim of violent mugging, twice, during his sexual endeavors in The Village. Now depressed. Falling into the abyss. It's time for A&E to come to New York and do a special Intervention.

A pot habit or a drinking habit would yank me away from a few things, but the closest I have ever come to intoxication was a weekend alone when we got into Toddy's dad's beer. It was boring and uneventful.

"I'm just tired all the time. I have a night job now." I mutter, pulling my elbows up and poking at my lunch a bit more. "Who's she going out with?"

"Nobody."

"You said she moved on, though."

"She's pregnant, man."

Whatever appetite I had is now gone. I shove the tray away and open my milk. "Oh."

I used to dream about having children with this girl.

"Oh?"

"O. It's a letter."

"She asked me during partner study in Zane's about you."

We shared a class with Zane last year. It was the only class I had with Katie Deauxma and when I wasn't thinking about her, I was thinking about Mrs. Zane's unsagging and matured bosom.

"About me? Does she want to crucify me again?"

"Don't be so dramatic. You're not even upset. You're just being a cynic."

"Then tell me why she wanted to talk to me."

"She doesn't want to talk to you. She asked if you were okay."

"Ha." I strain the single noise to drain any chance of authenticity from it. "Go on." I say. The air of an alcoholic, friend at his elbow begging him to put down the drink. The milk could be replaced with something stronger and it would be refreshing now. Between Hit-Girl's return and our chance meeting with Red Mist last night, I'm a bundle of nerves.

"That's it."

Katie Deauxma is supposed to be a lawyer. A doctor. A politician who doesn't lie. Perfect things that define you in a word or five. She's not supposed to be pregnant at 17. She's not supposed to.

"If she wants to know that I'm okay or not, she can ask me herself." I blurt out. "Tell her that."

Remember when you were a kid, and you said things you didn't mean and wished right away you could take them back? Then you wished it because it spelled 15 minutes on your bed staring at the wall in time-out, or no TV for a week. When you get older, you think into the future farther than that.

I regret my words. The last thing I need in my complicated existence is to talk with Katie Deauxma.

_"Life is a moderately good play with a badly-written third act."  
~Truman Capote~_


	5. Kill shot at a distance

~:~:~:~  
**Kick-Ass.**  
~:~:~:~

By the time I get home from school, I have two missed calls on my cellphone. I know the number. I blocked it from texting me almost a year ago. I had enough pictures of her sucking Carl's dick to last a lifetime by then.

I'm surprised she still remembers my number. Maybe Todd gave it to her if she didn't. Or Marty.

Hit-Girl isn't in Pandora's Room. She's nowhere in the apartment, and my Dad's on top of a folding chair in the kitchen, changing a lightbulb.

"We need to have dinner early tonight." He says. The morbid possibilities of why Katie Deauxma is so desperate to talk to me. Thinking about the possible reasons will make the payoff seem stupid, of course.

"Okay. I'll get ready." I say. Hit-Girl's not in my room either. No note. None of her stuff is here. The gun's still in my desk drawer. I feel the weight in my hand, and I look at myself in the mirror holding it a moment too long. Behind me in the reflection, the curtain moves.

"That fire escape can barely support my weight." She huffs, belly-flopping into the room, her shoes banging against the top portion of the window. "How do you go out for your patrol?"

"I just walk out the front door. It's quiet in the mornings here."

Her hands are crusted with dried blood and she's covered in dirt and nasty black junk. She dusts herself off and flops onto the edge of the bed, looking up at me.

"One day you'll have a cave under this place. With a waterfall and an old butler named Jeeves."

"Why Jeeves? Why not Alfred?"

"Because DC Comics would sue your ass." She sits up and huffs, pulling off her wig and untying her blonde hair. "I'm taking the bike out tonight. You're welcome to join me."

"I don't think you should, but count me out." I'm ready to settle into dinner, a rerun of American Dad and half-assing my homework.

"Maybe it's for the best. People have a habit of dying around you." She says.

I drop my bookbag to the ground and turn the gun over in my hand without thinking about it.

The last time this girl was shot out of a window, she became a Deus Ex Machina.

"You're not wearing kevlar." I quip. "Down to the underoos, as you put it. I've had a shitty day."

"Every day is a shitty day if you let it be. The world's a shitty place."

Words of wisdom from a sociopathic preteen with a penchant for murder.

"The world has enough problems without knowing ours. Let it go, Mindy."

"Now you're starting to sound like my Daddy."

"I've never lied to you. I'm nothing like your Dad."

"You told me that we are who we choose to be once. That was a lie."

"It's the truth."

"We are who the world makes us." She turns and puts a leg up on the windowsill. "Without him, I would have been another one of those people out there. You think I'm not old enough yet to think about tomorrow. I think about it. I just don't care sometimes."

..and like that, she's gone.

~:~:~:~  
**Red Mist.**  
~:~:~:~

In the two-bedroom apartment below my feet, three of the low-level enforcers are out of booze. They drink bottled water and orange juice from the carton, debating between chinese food or pizza tonight.

They've sat down there for over a month now. They call upstairs and check with me every two hours, on the hour. We have an alarm system rigged in the building, panels in every room with giant red panic buttons.

The two-bedroom unit sits on top of a six-story office building, floors rented out by a private software firm, an Identity Theft Protection company and two different Design Processes shops where underpaid college grads build motherboards and blog about the leaked iPhone 4G prototype. Above that apartment is a single room, and I've lived in that single room for the past three months.

Every few days, Uncle Carl or one of his associates up top call me.

My dad always called them my Elders. He said they were the men he answered to. The ones that knew the score and ran it well. They would take care of me. They would let me fill his place. Or they would shun me, cut me out, and keep me happy in an ivory tower somewhere while they had their hand in everything else. The latter was the reality. The only one who had even met me before my father's death is Great Uncle Carl.

The enforcers play cards and the computer geeks close up shop for the night. On paper, the apartment is rented by John Smith and the loft is only used for storage.

Learning to sneak out at night wasn't hard. It was learning to sneak back in. They're all night owls, and they're not looking to get reprimanded for losing track of me.

I can make a phone call and have anything I want. Food. Drink. Video game. Gadget. Movie. They don't like me going out on the streets. It's the perfect time for rivals in the business to get to me. Great Uncle Carl chewed me out about the damage to the 'red car' today. I had to promise, fingers crossed firmly behind leg, that I would stay inside and behave.

Of course, the package was the contingency there. Let them come to me. The best thing to have besides a good plan is a good backup plan.

The phone rings at 8:00 sharp. The last bit of light is leaving the city. The streetlights are already on and the cars that slide in tandem on the streets are fading, defined only by their twin, glowing eyes.

There's nothing to do now but stare out and look, but tonight, there's something to see. A hunch takes me back into the loft to get my binoculars, and I watch as four hundred and twenty-two yards away, a door opens three floors above the only lit floor in the Bank One tower across the plaza.

The phone rings again. I pick it up.

"Somebody's messing around across the street." I silently count the floors in my head. "22nd floor. Take a look. Anything happens, call in a few more."

There's no voice on the other end. Just a grunt of acknowledgment and a click.

If it's who I think it is, it's time to get into villain mode. The suit is still in the garment bag from the Dry Cleaners', hanging by my bed.

I know they don't have a chance against the purple girl, but I just need to make sure I've got her attention. I turn off the lights in the loft and sit by the window. When the lights come on across the street, I move for the door.

~:~:~:~  
**Hit-Girl.**  
~:~:~:~

The window of Kick-Ass' room is too small and the fire escape is a rusty behemoth that threatens to collapse at any second.

I'm mad enough to risk the bike in daylight. Big Daddy taught me how to drive a manual, an automatic and a motorcycle when I was 9, using blocks and sitting on stacks of books so that I could see over the steering wheel for them. I'm still mad when I reach the storage unit. I dig out the outfits first. The suit is a spare but it slides on like the homecoming of an old friend. There's something about not having a mask when you've worn one for so long. Like the suit, the mask is taken back with open arms.

Rounds slide into clips. Clips into guns. Guns into a case. The case on my back and the motorcycle kicking up dirt as it roars out onto the street.

Getting to the tower is a blur, but I remember following a black car with G3N0V35E for a license plate. This is too easy.

Picking the vantage point is a breeze. A pale guy with a ragged mullet smokes a cigarette by the back door, his vest proclaiming his employment with the Ace Cleaning Company. A single shot with the stun gun, and his lifeless body props the door open for my exit. The other doors of the building are probably equipped with alarms. 22 seems like a good pick at the time. Every floor from 12 up has balconies where employees of this and that company like to pretend they're not miserable at work by planting things or feeding the pigeons.

When the elevator rises, my stomach drops. Every groan or click from rusted gears or a squeaky cable is something to think about. Everything is back but the confidence.

The sliding glass door is much bigger than Dave's bedroom window. I crouch down behind the awning and take out the rifle. When the scope is against my eye, the confidence returns.

Look down. There's the window. There's the top window.

There he is. Adjust for wind. Remove the safety. Wait. Exhale.

He sits down by the window. Perfect.

Conveniently perfect.

I'm ready to pull the trigger when the roof lights turn on, blinding me. I cover the scope and crouch behind a row of planters on the 22nd floor balcony until my eyes can adjust. When I slide to the other end of the platform and brace the rifle, there's no more shadow in the window.

I start at the street, working my way up the side of the building, scanning windows one at a time. This was easier with a spotter. Normally, I was the spotter and Big Daddy was the shooter. The good old days.

I look for the shadows that were in the windows across the street again.

There are no more people in the target building. They didn't vanish into thin air. A lump starts in my chest and presses against the bottom of my throat.

The elevator in the hall outside doesn't ding when it arrives, but the doors open with the appropriate sound, and I'm cornered.

~:~:~:~  
**Kick-Ass.**  
~:~:~:~

Sometimes you call someone, and you don't want them to answer.

It's okay to hang up after 3 or 4 rings. No need to wait for the outgoing when you don't like leaving messages.

On the second ring, she answers.

Uncomfortable silence.

"Katie."

"Dave."

"You called?"

"Yeah... how are you?"

"No complaints. You?"

"I... I'm okay. It's good to hear from you, Dave."

This is the girl who taught me how to braid hair. The girl that used to talk to me about anything. The girl that I thought I was in love with, and thought she loved a version of me that didn't exist.

"I'm still straight." I say.

"Yeah... well, Dave... how are... why don't we meet somewhere? We... I'd like to see you again."

I try to picture every sappy, cliche, conventional end to this. In a soap opera or show on The N, I would be the father of her baby. It's almost as realistic as anything else that has turned in my life since I first put on the suit.

"I'm busy." I make an excuse. My thoughts drift back to Hit-Girl.

"Sure you are. I understand... but make time, Dave."

"Why should I? I already told you, I'm straight, Katie. I can't be your gay best friend, and I can't be your boyfriend, apparently."

I don't even know why I called. This is just painful.

"Maybe a friend is enough right now, Dave."

Suddenly, I want this conversation to end.

"Okay. Tomorrow then..." I mutter a goodbye and hang up.

I take the single phone number off my block list. My cellphone beeps in appreciation.

Nobody has a landline in 2010, but it won't take a government trace for the word of Katie Deauxma talking with a heterosexual Dave Lizewski willingly to spread like wildfire.

Wanting to disappear from the world, I let myself become Kick-Ass once again, and I go to 6th and Dodd to look for Hit-Girl. She's gone. The motorcycle's gone, and one of the weapons cases is gone.

So much for the things we say in anger never having meaning. She's intent on getting herself killed chasing satisfaction.

The bike was a custom job. I know how well Damon Macready planned for things, and I tear the storage unit apart looking for the ace in the hole.

The device is about the size of a large television remote, packed away in one of the satchels full of C4. GPS isn't run by AT&T, knock on wood, and in a minute, I pinpoint the signal coming from the transmitter on the motorcycle. The overhead map is outdated and I would prefer Google Maps, but I recognize the landmarks.

With no other mode of transportation fast enough, I hail a cab.

I always carry a twenty in my belt, in case I need to buy food somewhere late at night. It's enough to get to the Plaza.

The gun's in a pouch on the belt. It weighs down my left side, affecting my balance.

"Nice Kick-Ass costume, kid. Convention in town, or some type of roleplaying game?" The cabbie jokes and drags on his cigarette.

"I usually carpool with Batman. Step on it, okay?"

~:~:~:~  
**Hit-Girl.**  
~:~:~:~

I pack up the rifle and listen against the door. Stepping back inside. For a moment, I feel panic set in and throw the case through the window. I begin to scramble out after it, then realize that I'm over 20 floors up. Damn.

If Big Daddy were here, he'd have a better plan than hiding or jumping out the window.

I duck into a storage closet and listen against the crack in the door. The goons step out of the foyer and like the stereotypical henchmen of the modern age, they aren't quiet. They never shut the fuck up, do they?

I draw my pistols and wait. There's three other doors in the front hall besides this one and three of them. The odds are not in my favor.

Confidence becomes regret. Kick-Ass is another pair of hands, even if he's a jerk.

A door opens in the outside hall. Then another. Then another. Footsteps back and forth, stomping around the offices.

They look around for several long, agonizing minutes.

"Clear."  
"Clear."  
"Clear."

The last door is my hiding place.

_"We are made to persist. That's how we find out who we are."  
~Tobias Wolff~_


	6. The one chase sequence

~:~:~:~  
**Kick-Ass.**  
~:~:~:~

The motorcycle is concealed behind a few empty machinery shells in the alley behind the Bank tower. No Hit-Girl. No signs of her anywhere. No screams or sirens, and no gunshots. It's a silence that I don't welcome. It means I could be too late.

The first sign of her passing is a dead guy laying in the doorway of the back entrance. Knocked out, rather. He appears to be stirring, and I give him a blast with the hand tazer I've started carrying on my belt since I lost one of my batons.

Suddenly, glass shatters far above my head and a rifle case falls out the window, tipping end over end. It lands hard in the west lot. It's made of titanium, that ultra-light and ultra-strong metal that can be acquired for pennies if you buy it from the surplus stock in the former Soviet Union out of the back of a hunting magazine.

I run out to the lot and look back at the building. A quick look at the broken pane and I count the floors. Is it a signal for help, or just too heavy to carry for her? She's never been subtle.

The elevator seems to be held up by someone, so I have to run up the stairs. It's a long run and I've put my heart into my make-up quarter of PE this year. I've also been slacking. Eating too many late night meals from Taco Bell and McDonald's when I couldn't stomach dinner with Dad, worrying about his own weary routine around home was bad enough, but it has been piled on top of everything that I've been dealing with.

Katie Deauxma's pregnant.

Flight 14 and I begin to walk as fast as I can, unable to sprint any longer, the pain in my chest has seared through my heart now. I've cleared 13 floors of steps in record speed, though. If I ever give up the mask, I can go for track.

Level 20 and I'm completely winded. I can't enter the fray with no wind in me, or I'll be useless. I try to calm down. The adrenaline is flowing through my body now. My right leg shakes, and I can't help it.

It shakes too damn much, even for a situation like this.

Katie Deauxma's pregnant.

You're probably wondering by now why I still gave a shit about Katie Deauxma.

Bear in mind, I know every one of this girl's dirty little secrets. I had been her gay best friend. I thought I was in love with her. Maybe in some primal way, I still can be. She's beautiful, but shallow at the core. I didn't notice when I was allowing her to think I was gay that she was shallow at all. I thought she was absolutely sweet. Perfect. Gentle. Kind and caring and all the things that nobody really is.

We never find someone we really love.

We find the next best thing and lie to ourselves.

She used to be the cause of a lot of deviant thoughts. I remember the selfishly chauvinistic boners I had whenever she sat on my lap while watching a movie to be friendly, or when we had sleepover and shared the bed.

One day I'll be 40 and it'll be too late. I'll turn 18 and Marty will want me to buy cigarettes for him. I'll turn 21 and not even drink, but I'll still forget it.

The world forgets about us. Maybe that's why some of us put on these masks. We all want attention.

I hear gunshots from above and my second wind comes back.

I consider kicking the door for a grand, thunderous cinematic entrance, but I just open it the old fashioned way.

~:~:~:~  
**Hit-Girl.**  
~:~:~:~

I'm firing the guns again. It was a lost feeling, but it comes back as naturally as riding a bike. My dad always said that guns were a fun thing, as long as you treated them with respect and understood their power.

They have the power to do a lot of things, but the first thing I do with them is a raw, violent, bloody shooting. 36 rounds of 9mm ammo fly through the door. Blood splatters every inch of the foyer, two of the cows led to slaughter. One of them fires his gun as my bullets tear into his chest. He falls back, one leg kicking him in the air, finger clenching the trigger in a death grip. Bullets tear up the wall by the door into the next room. The third one takes a round in the shoulder and dives into the open elevator car, prying the doors open with his bloody hand and clutching against the wall until I run dry.

I step out of the room. He comes out of the elevator car and fires at me. The bullet bounces off the wall behind my head. I turn to the side and yank the fibreglass ring knife from my belt buckle. One, two, three turns. to the left. I toss it into his chest. He fires again, hitting me in the shoulder.

The man who invented the Nobel Peace Prize invented Dynamite.

I wonder if he invented Kevlar too. They're both wonderful inventions.

Kick-Ass barrels through the door just as elevator goon's punctured lung fills with blood and he drowns with a sickening gurgle.

"Anticlimactic." I say, trying my best to sound tough. My shoulder is hurting badly. I remember being shot... shot by Big Daddy. Shot by Genovese and now shot in the shoulder during this action sequence. It hurts too bad for that. I can feel wet blood running down my arm inside of the outfit. My entire arm goes numb. I pick up the empty 9mms and put in fresh clips. My fingers are numbing next, every move is a sharp dozen pins into the nerves. I put them back in the holsters and retrieve the ring knife from elevator goon's throat, picking up his gun instead.

"You okay?" He says, looking at me. The penetration in the shoulder is clean. I can't quite feel the throbbing agony that will come after the shock, but I already know that the bullet sailed clean through all layers of spandex, kevlar, flesh, bone and muscle before exiting the other side the same.

I open elevator goon's gun slide and tip out the bullet into my good hand.

Teflon-coated bullets. Cop killers. Armor-piercing rounds.

Vests are optional.

"Fine."

"You're pale."

"Adrenaline. Let's get out of here. Red Mist is gone. There could be more on the way."

~:~:~:~  
**Kick-Ass.**  
~:~:~:~

So, now that I've missed the entire fight, I can tell you that Katie Deauxma is not a good girl. Everything I thought about her was just physical, but I convinced myself that it was deeper than that because the only other person who I knew in the flesh that I jerked off to as much was Mrs. Zane.

But I still care.

I guess.

It's not even my kid. I'm a virgin. If Chris has anything planned right, I may die a virgin.

Hit-Girl doesn't look so good. It's just her first time back in the game, I tell myself. I should have gotten here sooner. I haven't fucked up too bad, at least.

She takes point and we run down the stairs. She stops at the tenth floor down and listens. One of the cleaners from floor 19 has called the police. There are sirens outside of the building now. They're coming to haul us away and unmask us for everyone.

Commissioner Gordan is not going to help us.

~:~:~:~  
**Hit-Girl.**  
~:~:~:~

The pain in my shoulder has spread into my chest. I'm bleeding too much. Too damn much for a shoulder wound. It makes me woozy. I try to keep pressure on it while I run, but it's still agonizing even when it's numb. I feel lightheaded, and when we get down to the bottom, I don't know if I can move fast enough to get out of here with him.

Those sirens are close. I don't want to do a melodramatic 'go on without me' here. I'm not going to do that, because it won't help anyone. I ignore the pain in my shoulder and grab onto his arm, getting his attention.

"You're going to have to drive. They got me a bit. I've only got one good arm."

"But- How..."

"I'm fine. Just keep it over 80 so if we crash, we die like a couple of badasses." I hand him the keys. He helps me onto the bike and I straighten myself up against his back. I take the belt off my outfit and tie it around us. I carefully lean my bad arm down to support myself and take off the glove with my teeth, clutching onto the frame of the seat.

Right on cue, two red and blues pull into the lot. A black car circles the building and passes right by us. The driver points at us, but the passenger shakes his head and the car stops. They won't interfere now. They'll let us go down with the pigs.

"Get us the fuck out of here." I say. He guns the ignition too hard on his first turn and I almost collapse. It's not the best time to learn, but only one of the cop cars follows us.

"Get off the road. Through the alley!" I yell.

~:~:~:~  
**Kick-Ass.**  
~:~:~:~

I've never been at the handles of a bike before, unless my green Mongoose racing bike counts. I hope that Hit-Girl riding double will keep the bike weighed down enough not to tumble from the torque.

The rifle case is laying on the asphalt. I lay it lengthwise on the rack on the back of the bike, hooking the handle to a strap on the back of the seat.

She ties herself to me and she still has a gun in her hand.

"No cops." I say to her. I feel the bastard throbbing between my legs and I think of how uncool we look right now. Blood-splattered kids in costumes, tied together on a bike without even hating the cops enough to shoot them.

"If it's necessary..." She begins, and I shake my head. I go on ignored. The motorcycle yanks us around the corner. I turn into the alley at her command and straighten my elbows, picking up speed. I wiggle to the left, trying to maintain my balance. I feel like I'm slipping.

One police car follows us. The black car I saw, reinforcements that will go unneeded, slipped away before they could be noticed too clearly. Some delta cop with a big news story and publicity in his grin guns after us through the alley, and the alley's wide enough for the car with room to spare. Shit.

"LEFT!" She screams when I get to the end of the alley. I turn left and go too wide, the back end of the motorcycle crashes into a parked cab, denting the entire left side. She yells something I can't reprint here, and I try to tilt the motorcycle back to the right and gun it again.

The black and white car sailed right past us with that GTA4 turn, but the cop jumps out of the car when it stops past the turn and runs quickly around the tenement that blocks us from his view. He jumps onto the curb and fires three shots at the motorcycle, aiming for the tires. Hit-Girl fires at him, and he suddenly stops. His partner is a worse shot. He hits a passing car. The driver swerves and hits a fence.

Before the partner can commandeer the police car and I can ask if the one she shot is alive or dead, I realize that I've been standing on the emergency brake the entire time. I kick my shoe off it and pop the clutch. The motorcycle lunges forward, almost throwing us both off.

"ALIVE OR DEAD!" I scream back at her. I leave the road again and enter another alley. We've got fifteen blocks between here and 6th and Dodd.

She doesn't answer me. Things have gotten worse back there. The black car has returned.

~:~:~:~  
**Red Mist.**  
~:~:~:~

"Chris. You heard from the guys inside?"

"No. Not a word. Get over there."

I told them to call for help if they needed it. They haven't called, and they haven't called to gloat either.

So they're dead.

The phone rings again. I have to take off my gloves to answer the iPhone. The material they're made out of isn't felt by the touch screen. I put it on speaker.

"Yeah."

"The cops are there. They're running away. On a motorcycle. No sign of the guys upstairs. Cops are swarming the place now."

"Follow along if you can. If the cops catch them, slip away. I want them neutralized tonight." The last line flows from me with the appropriate vilainous charm. I've been working on my villain voice, I can admit. It's hard to do seriously in the mirror. Ironically, I was better at the gruff and confident hero voice.

We get to the next friendly place and I call Great Uncle Carl. He's already heard from one of the local guys.

I'm fine  
Yes, I understand.  
I'm sorry.  
Okay.  
Okay.  
Yes.  
Okay.  
Yes.  
I said I was sorry.  
I'm fine.  
Fine.  
Goodbye.

I can't risk everything now chasing after them and exposing myself to the cops. Things are about to get much more interesting for Kick-Ass.

I contacted a friend in the comic business. Well, sort of. He works as a mail clerk in the offices for Icon. By day. By night, the guy is downloading torrents, streaming leaked copies of new albums from the RIAA archives and logging IP addresses to swarm with junk mail when he gets bored. Before all of this petty crime, he was a comic geek like me and one of the few I could convince that my dad was only a businessman.

I sent him every bit of electronic information I could find on Kick-Ass. Small radical groups with access to Freewebs and Geocities have been forming cases to try and unmask vigilantes in America. They call it Dox. Information on celebrities that is confidential, unlisted or just stalker fodder. The file on me has dick. I found an IP address for Kick-Ass. He was smart enough to use a tunnel-proxy connection whenever he formed the web page, but he doesn't have protection on the IP address that created his Myspace page.

After the relinquishment of a rare Captain America from the silver case, he's got some information for me. An address linked to an ISP's billing information. It's enough.

I know where the cave is, Batman.

I have to make an appearance to reassure the Elders that I'm safe. Then I'll make use of this new information.

~:~:~:~  
**Hit-Girl.**  
~:~:~:~

The black car is back. I'm almost out of ammo. No clips.

"SLOW DOWN!" I scream. He stops suddenly, throwing my head against his. The black car guns forward, prepared to drive directly into us. I shoot the front tires, blowing one out and forcing the car to swerve to the right.

The car reverses and tears after us on it's rim. The underlings don't want to report failure. They're persistent.

So this motorcycle has some cool gadget that is going to get us out of this, right?

It has some rocket boosters, or some little tire shredder dispenser in it's exhaust pipe, right?

It doesn't. We are fucked.

Kick-Ass suddenly turns to the right. With a busted tire, the black car can't make the turn. Kick-Ass screams and swerves, barely avoiding the wrath of an oncoming truck. The yellow line is crossed, throwing us back into the right lane. The black car is hit by the truck, slamming ass-backwards into the exterior wall of another building.

He stops suddenly, and this time I do fall off the bike. The belt around my stomach goes up, digging into my chest. The motorcycle tips and he throws a leg down to the ground, keeping himself standing. I undo the belt and stand up.

"Get back on. We have to get moving." He looks back at the wreckage. There are more sirens in earshot.

~:~:~:~  
**Kick-Ass.**  
~:~:~:~

Uneventful is boring until you've experienced a night like this.

The rush of adrenaline has exhausted me. I can't even imagine how she feels. The apartment is empty when we get back. It's going to be another late work night for dad.

She carries one case under her injured arm and one in her good hand. The rifle case, scratched but intact. In the other is a satchel from the storage compartment under the motorcycle seat.

She goes into the kitchen. I follow behind her, taking off my mask and turning on the light.

"Boiling water. Something for a bandage..." She holds up a box of Band-Aids from the drawer. "These aren't big enough." She opens the case from storage and takes out the military-grade First Aid kit. It's designed for live combat trauma in the worst conditions, when a medic or a base are miles away.

It'll do for a pre-teen that can't go to the emergency room. I've survived worse things than this myself. I change and take the water off the stove. She takes the shower curtain out of the bathroom and lays it down on top of the kitchen table.

She lays down on top of it, taking the knife from her boot and cutting a large circle in the material around the holes in either sides of her shoulder.

There are several small ampules in the case. I take one out, and at her insistence, I load one with a plastic capsule marked only by color and inject it into the top of her shoulder. It must be something strong, because she goes slack after that, speaking with her eyes hooded, shoulder finally relaxed after the initial shock.

I drop the tools in the boiling water and put on a clean pair of gloves.

She directs me on what to do. The light above the table is sharp and hot. More than once I draw fresh blood when I cut into the skin to properly anchor the makeshift stitches. It's not sickening in the worst kind of way. If you've ever watched a zombie movie or dissected a frog, it's a combination.

"Big Daddy taught you a lot of things, Hit-Girl."

"He had to. He lived a dangerous life."

"Of his own choice..."

"Now you're going to say that it only makes what you told me before right, aren't you?"

"I don't have to now, I guess."

Something bothering me. I finish bandaging her shoulder and look at her.

"The cops are alive. Right?"

"I aimed for their knees. You should be more concerned with the bullets in this gun."

She's shot a cop, regardless. They'll be looking for us now. No more playing around. The deck has stacked itself higher.

She turns her newly acquired firearm over with her good hand and locks the slide back, tipping out the oddly shaped round. It's got a red round on a common casing. The color of bronze, professionally designed.

I considered getting kevlar for my costume after my initial stabbing, but it wasn't affordable. Now, it's even less necessary. If all of Genovese's remnants are equipped with those, we are fucked.

When you spend the better part of a year without the ability to walk comfortably, you begin to appreciate life.

"So, that wasn't so bad, was it? I hope next time you'll show up sooner." She says. "So, what are you thinking, Kick-Ass?"

"I think you'll live to kill again, Hit-Girl."

"Splendid."

_"Every hero becomes a bore at last."  
~Ralph Waldo Emerson~_


	7. A superhero

~:~:~:~  
**Kick-Ass.**  
~:~:~:~

Hit-Girl returns to Pandora's room for a bit of sleep. The bullet she showed me is still on the kitchen table. I pick it up and hide it in my room with the gun, wondering what my father would say if he saw it.

I get the motorcycle back with no trouble and pack up the rest of the tools. The medical kit is left under my bed. The tool kit gets packed up with the rest, and I notice that the motorcycle isn't cherry anymore.

It's seen quite a bit of action tonight. The exterior is dinged and scratched and dented all over, the clutch is sticking and one of the grips on the right bar is cracked. It saved our lives, but now we're fugitives.

I head back home and sit down in front of the TV. My adrenaline is still on it's last legs from the chase earlier. The 6am news comes after an hour and a half of boring programming, and the top story today. You guessed it. Vigilante Kick-Ass wanted in connection with the shooting of a police officer, and suspected in the shooting of three others. Nothing about the black car. Nothing about the Genovese family. They know better.

Red Mist is a coward. Why be concerned?

He hid in his bathroom while Hit-Girl burned down the foyer of his father's Penthouse. He's been hiding behind his car, and now behind his underlings. He seems so confident in himself now. So assured of whatever he's planning. I know that everything up until now has just been play, and I wonder if we have entered the phase where things begin to get serious.

Something's got to give, some time.

~:~:~:~  
**Red Mist.**  
~:~:~:~

The word gets back, and it's not unexpected. They got away.

A minor setback. It was never part of the bigger picture anyway.

You read a lot of comics. You understand what the true meaning of being a villain is from them.

It's not being evil. It's not wanting to rule the world, and it's especially not sitting in a room in Venice with Dakota Fanning and Martin Sheen. It's being diabolical.

Let them think they've got you figured out. Then surprise them.

Uncle Carl calls. Again. I am a light sleeper, snatching the phone up before it's third ring.

"Hello?"

"Chris. Tomorrow, we're moving you out of the city. It's not safe here right now."

"Bullshit. It's as safe as anywhere else." I mutter.

"The cops are involved now."

"The cops have always been involved. Half of them are on our payroll, remember?"

"_Our _payroll, Christopher?"

"You're right, Uncle Carl. I'm sorry. _My _payroll. Mine. After all, I'm in charge now."

"The Elders are in charge, Chris. You get safety, luxury and a trust. Let them handle things. Stay out of trouble. Let this stupid superhero thing go."

"You promised me that you would help me see it through to the end, Uncle Carl. Don't make me adjust my schedule."

"Tomorrow at 3, a car is going to pick you up. If you're not in it, you're gonna on your own, Chris. At least I'll have tried to talk some sense into you."

"Don't expect me to be there. I have other plans."

It's true. With the windfall of Kick-Ass' identity and address in my inventory, I make a phone call to someone special.

~:~:~:~  
**Kick-Ass.**  
~:~:~:~

I flop in for a quick nap before school and check on Mindy. She's asleep, a hand pressed over her shoulder. Dad is going to be home from his night job soon. I clean up the apartment a bit and hold the clear plastic curtain under the shower head until all of the blood is washed down the drain. I hang it back up and get my things together.

I skip my morning patrol in lieu of another quick nap. I have a bit more energy to spare, and it gets me through first period, where Mr. Tildon tries to teach upperclassmen English they failed the year before. Second period is a bust. Marty partners up with me during note-taking.

"So, I heard you talked to Katie. I guess things have improved?"

"I'm not talking about that right now." I insist. He'll push the button. He always does.

"Excuse _me_, queer. Are you metrosexual again, or are you going to find a way to lose your virginity?"

"She's pregnant, Marty. It's unthinkable."

"If God didn't want us to have sex while women are pregnant, he would have made birth defects more common."

Spoken like a true devil. Teenager.

"A year ago, I was her gay best friend. Now she wants me to be her friend again. That means something."

"Yeah, it means that she looooooooves you, sure."

"I didn't say that."

"You didn't have to. It's all over your face. You're still after her, man."

"If I ever gave a shit about her, it was because I wanted to stick my dick in her, Marty. Not because I really was in love with her."

The button has been pushed. I speak louder than necessary now, drawing stares from half of the classroom as well as Mrs. Roche. The piece of chalk in her hand slips on the first outburst and leaves a streak down her top.

Damn, Marty. You've just given the student body at large another chance to laugh at my expense. Thank you.

~;~;~;~

After school.

She doesn't touch the coffee I ordered for her. She ignores the container of fruit I bought at the counter. She pokes at the pieces of melon with a fork and put another hand under her shoulder, not looking at me for several moments. Finally, I speak.

"So..." I manage.

"So..." She repeats.

"Why am I here, Katie?"

"Because you wanted to come... right?"

Fat chance.

"No. Why did you bring me here?"

"Because I knew you would."

Frustration.

"Just tell me why you've been trying to talk to me."

She's not showing. Not too much. Not yet. Soon enough.

"Well, first I want to apologize. I've been a bitch."

"You haven't spoken to me in almost a year. You _were _a bitch, Katie. Past tense. _Were._"

"Okay, I deserve that. Hear me out."

"I'm not stopping you." I take another sip of my coffee. It tastes like boiled paper now.

"Well, Dave..." She begins.

Here we go.

"...I realized that you were a good friend... and I missed you."

"You missed a version of me that didn't exist, Katie."

"Well, you were more than happy to go along with it."

"You were more than happy to sic the jock on me." I retort.

"If you're saying what I believe you are, you can stop it. It's not Carl's."

"Then whose is it?"

"That's the scary part, Dave. I don't know."

Juicy.

~:~:~:~  
**Hit-Girl.**  
~:~:~:~

I wake up when Mr. Lizewski comes home. He goes to sleep in his bed a few minutes later. I sneak out of the room and go to the front door.

Visions of walking down the street, on my way to prepare another stab at ridding this planet of Red Mist are shattered when I see the box outside the front door.

No label. No return address.

Plain brown paper around a plain brown box.

I bring it inside and look at it. Do I dare open it?

Don't worry. I'm one of the good guys. Good guys don't get killed in stories like this, right?

They just get manipulated, beaten, shot, ridiculed and destroyed in every way but physical. Sometimes physical also.

I really don't want to do this. If it's what I hope it's not, I am about to be in charge of the lives of myself, the unaware, sleeping father of Kick-Ass and the people in this building, depending how large. If it isn't, then I can walk away.

Please.

I open one corner of the paper. The paper is folded and taped nicely. If it wasn't so bland, it could pass for an interesting gift. The rest of the paper comes out, and I open the box.

We're all going to die.

~:~:~:~  
**Kick-Ass.**  
~:~:~:~

We sit for an hour.

She tells me about being pregnant.

She tells me about the aches and the swells, and the puking. The headaches and the pains and all of the other things that women shouldn't endure until they're 20 and college-stupid.

She tells me that school is tough without the drama. Now it's even worse. I understand the sentiment.

"Understand, Dave. You were a good friend, and I was wrong. I want to fix things."

"I'm not gay, though."

"You don't have to be."

"I don't want to date you, Katie."

"I never said you would. Even if so, what's wrong with just being friends?"

I'm going to die a virgin, I just know it.

"Friends are a hard thing to come by, Dave." She continues, "Friends that don't judge you."

I'm the most judgmental person I know. There must be a mistake.

"Go on."

~:~:~:~  
**Hit-Girl.**  
~:~:~:~

Red, you're dead.

Green, you're keen.

Never the blue.

Right? Never the blue.

What about the black? orange? yellow?

No, wait... the cyan.

Yes, the cyan.

I never learned about these kinds of bombs. I only learned things like this from TV.

Another color nobody has ever heard of, the wire attached to the third bolt that lines the casing of the device in the box. The digital readout is ominous. It gives the time as seven minutes, fourteen seconds and counting.

I grab a pair of wire cutters from the kitchen junk drawer. Death, or telling Kick-Ass about it, laughing uneasily the entire time.

I cut the cyan wire. Nothing happens.

I cut the green and the black. Then the orange. Then the yellow.

The counter continues.

I cut the green one next.

The timer blinks, off, on, off, on and begins to count down from 5.

5.

4.

3.

Shitshitshitshitshitshit.

I grab the bomb and run for the open window.

2.

The window is locked. I can't get it open.

1.

Boom.

_"It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any survival value._"  
_~Arthur C. Clarke~_


	8. That moment

~:~:~:~  
**Kick-Ass.**  
~:~:~:~

I silence my cellphone after second period. My teacher in period 3 is a phone-taker, and the last thing I need now is to miss an emergency call because the phone goes off in class.

I look at the screen of my phone when Katie goes into the bathroom to wash her face. She's been crying a bit too much to ignore. I have four missed calls. Two voicemails. No text messages. It's the number of my apartment building's front office.

Maybe Dad forgot to pay the rent again. It's happened before. Or we just didn't have it that week. It's been like this for about three months. He's been forgetting about it since Mom died, but he always had me around to remind him. Now I'm never around.

I can't understand my Dad. He's so simple. He doesn't seem complex at all. I hate knowing that he can be normal and I can't sometimes.

I call back the number. The line is busy.

When Katie returns from the bathroom, I stand up and look at her.

"Well... Katie... I guess if you need to talk, you can text me. Or call me. I have to go."

Her makeup has run bad enough that it couldn't be repaired. She has streaks around her eyes and down her cheeks. She says the last thing I want to hear, in the worst way I could hear it.

"Thank you, Dave."

Nobody thanks me.

I know that's the truth.

I grab my stuff and head out. I haven't worn my suit under my clothes today. The events of the past two nights have left it saturated with blood and sweat. It needs a wash.

Kick-Ass will solve everything. What he's created will change the world.

It already has changed the world. Forever. Right?

People are dying. Good men are turning their backs on boring and unfufilling lives, putting on capes and masks and taking to the streets. Some of them are criminals. Some of them are monsters that want an excuse.

But there is only one villain.

~:~:~:~  
**Hit-Girl.**  
~:~:~:~

Water is dripping on my face.

A bomb exploded in my hands.

No. Not in my hands. In the window in front of me.

The window was locked. Nothing I could do. I threw it at the glass as hard as I could with one good arm. It had just cleared the windowsill when it blew.

I was suddenly thrown back.

The entire wall collapsed. The foundation of the middle section of the building leaned a centimeter. Car alarms are still going off. Every window on this side of each floor of the building is cracked or shattered. In the middle of it all, the garden is a mess of burning rubble and whatever the bomb was packed with, burning in a weird red hue.

I'm laying next to the fridge.

I get to my feet. Mr. Lizewski is nowhere in sight. The floor below me is beginning to peel. The maw in the side of the building is too easy to fall into. I clutch the edge of a collapsed beam and haul myself up. The fridge is still standing. The pump for the water line is broken, running onto the floor.

When the bomb exploded, I was thrown into the fridge. It knocked the wind out of me and just about knocked me out, but I lived through this tragedy once again.

The hair on the left side of my brow is singed. It's only the wig hair, I realize. I look in the broken mirror above the stove. My 'hair' is blackened and burned badly.

The front door, possibly inside of the only wall in the apartment that hasn't suffered some sort of damage, is thrown open. Harsh lights are suddenly in my face.

"STOP!" A man yells, muffled by his mask. These are firefighters. They're not armed. I spin around the counter and run into the bedroom. The ceiling is cracked and the whole floor is covered in rubble. I grab both of the pistols from his hiding spot and look out the window. I don't have any rope. I open his window and scoot out. I turn around and hang from the windowsill, dropping down when my feet are lined up with the planter outside. The fire escape could work, but it's hanging on by a single bolt now.

The planter gives and I haul myself up into the apartment. Everyone's running through the lobby right now, screaming about the end of the world.

I take out the gun I gave Kick-Ass and let myself out into the corridor. Sirens outside. The cops have gotten here. I run down the stairs, taking them two at a time. The verdana outside by the garden is destroyed, but I slip through and walk through the yard towards the gate. Outside, three black and white cars sit with their red and blue lights flashing. I have no choice but to test my luck. I hop the gate and casually walk past.

Three steps past the circle, someone grabs my arm. I turn and punch him in the solar plexus, then deliver a kick to his kneecap, cracking it. Another cop approaches me, hand going for his pepper spray. I aim the gun and put a bullet through his right thigh. He screams and falls down, clutching it. I hop over him and open the door of one of the cars.

I don't know what happened. I just know that the bomb did less damage outside than inside, so maybe I didn't screw up that badly.

I take the shotgun from the center of the car and rack it, shell sliding into the chamber. As I walk for the gate, more cops direct their attention to me. I fire from the hip, pellets tearing into the pair of cars parked together. The fire truck stops hosing down the side of the building and the attendants run for cover. I drop the shotgun and hop the fence.

They chase me, and they don't get me. I slip through the cracks, once again.

It's after school, but Kick-Ass wasn't home. Maybe he was with friends.

Maybe he went to change the locks on the storage unit. He can be that stubborn sometimes.

Maybe nobody's called him. Maybe he doesn't know yet.

I find some change in my pocket and walk to a payphone. I'm sticking out like a sore thumb, dressed like a convention nerd, but every cop in the city is surrounding the apartments right now. Conspiracy theorists are already debating.

Kick-Ass' phone rings through.

Either he's busy or what they say about AT&T is true.

~:~:~:~  
**Kick-Ass.**  
~:~:~:~

I get back to the apartment building.

Up in what used to be our kitchen, a firefighter tears down a hanging piece of sheetrock from the ceiling.

The stove peeks out of the hole. The crew shoves it out. It falls end over end and lands below. Police keep people at bay with miles and miles of their yellow tape. Cellphones are thrust high in the air. Some have home video cameras. Channel 8 has their van surrounded by gawkers while the overpaid and undereducated speaker talks about the possibility of an intentional explosive attack.

Dad.

I approach the nearest officer, trying my best to be assertive.

"I'm Dave Lizewksi. I live in this building. What happened?"

He looks at me. He speaks into the radio on his shoulder. Repeats my name. Something garbled comes through the other end. He looks at me.

"Come with me."

Damn.

~:~:~:~  
**Red Mist.**  
~:~:~:~

It takes almost 30 minutes for the news to break.

The plan was to rattle the cage. Get him angry. Bring him to her level, let him see past being cautious or being afraid.

Then when he's had enough of being angry, it'll be time for him to be scared again.

The plan was simple, but once I knew who Kick-Ass really was, I couldn't resist a chance to bring him to _my _level.

The best part won't even be the kill. The kill is nothing. Even another round of torture won't be enough to satisfy me.

I want to see him beg. I want to see him grovel, and crawl on his hands and knees. I want him to understand what it's like to lose things.

The news still hasn't mentioned the father. Whether he's dead or alive, can't be told.

I open my Macbook and log onto Myspace. Myspace has waned in popularity after four-plus years of being king. Truth be told, I don't have the motivation to get a Facebook.

_Feel kind of naked when you're all alone without your suit, Kick-Ass?_

The message isn't sent to Kick-Ass' Myspace. That wouldn't get the point across.

Just so he knows.

Just so he has no doubt.

Dave Lizewski has 51 friends on Myspace. Red Mist has 45,000 and change. Kick-Ass has almost 33,000.

Dave Lizewski's inbox has a new addition, and all is right with the world.

~:~:~:~  
**Kick-Ass.**  
~:~:~:~

"I want to know what happened to my dad."

The table is a folding table wedged into the corner of a tiny room that I suspect was once used for storage. The door is heavy but hollow, with a single lock and a scratchy, small plexiglass panel serving as a window.

The light is hot and the air conditioning is sporadic at best. I slip off my jacket and let it hang off the chair.

Finally, I get some answers, after sitting in this room for 45 minutes listening to a detective tell me how sorry he is for the loss of my property, and that they are working hard to get to the bottom of this and blah-blah.

Did you have any enemies?

Any threats? Criminal acquantices with access to explosives?

The real billion dollar question is why the bomb, made from over the counter substances and plastic explosive, burned with a bright red hue when it's chemicals began to combust.

Of course, I already know the answer.

"Dave."

My call back to reality. I've been staring at the wall for fifteen minutes.

"Yes."

He looks at me. He's weary, and he has words that he has to pretend bother him to speak. He's spoken them so many times before. The lines in his face give me the impression of a world-weary man with a dead end marriage and 30 grand a year after over a decade of protecting and serving and enforcing the law.

"When the explosive went off, the apartment was destroyed. One of the tenants was tending the garden outside. She was smothered. She suffered third-degree burns on 30% of her body or more. She's probably not going to make it."

"Go on."

"Well, you saw the hole. It could have taken out the entire building. Thank god the people in the surrounding units weren't home, for the most part."

"Go on."

"Your father..."

"_Go on."_

He suddenly changes the subject.

"Someone was in the apartment, Dave. The fire team reported seeing a girl. A young girl wearing a costume and a mask. The same young girl that shot two police officers last night. The same young girl that put two more in the hospital today. She's apparently the accomplice of the vigilante known as Kick-Ass."

"But Kick-Ass doesn't hurt good people." I say.

"That's unsubstantiated. Do you know anything about this individual? Can you explain why she would blow up your apartment?"

I want to laugh. I want to laugh.

"No. I can't. Kick-Ass doesn't hurt good people, and neither would anyone else he works with."

The words cannot be said without my eyes leaving his. I can't look him in the eye and tell him that this girl in question isn't without her share of... quirks.

He knows he won't get anywhere with me about this. He doesn't understand. To him, I'm just a fan of Kick-Ass with a bruised ego. I'm an impressionable teen. I'm innocent.

"Your father..."

"Yes. My father. **Tell me.**"

Uncomfortable silence.

No.

.

.

.

.

"...I'm sure he loved you very much, Dave."

I want to laugh.

_"Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that is troublesome."  
~Isaac Asimov~_


	9. I am the bad guy

~:~:~:~  
**Kick-Ass.**  
~:~:~:~

_"Wait until they get a load of me."_

It's all about what I want now.

I want revenge. I want blood. I want death and violence and I want suffering for this. I want to tear the world apart.

My dad is dead, and it is my fault.

It's my fault.

That's why so many of us wear masks.

I've finally figured out why it's so damn tempting.

When you're you, there are consequences. When you're someone else, there are none.

That's what they believe.

That's what I believed.

Maybe I was sick. Maybe I missed my mother so much and I hated seeing my dad cry all the time, and I hated school and I hated Katie Deauxma who never paid attention to me, and I hated Toddy and Marty who were too damn consistent to ever allow me a moment to _live._ It was all routine and I hated it. I hated it and I wanted more. I wanted something out of life. I wanted to leave something behind.

My dad is dead, and it is my fault.

I stood up after he said it.

I didn't want to believe it. I wanted to deny it.

I left the room and made it halfway to the bathroom before I threw up. There were a few chairs against the wall and I just collapsed there. Maybe it was the lack of sleep, or the sour taste in my mouth or maybe it was the events of the past few days that had completely shattered the cracked world around me I was trying to tape back up. It was a combination of all of them. I heaved lunch and what was left of last night's takeout across the floor and somebody grabbed me around the middle. The messenger not to be shot was back in my ear, telling me that I needed to rest and that I would be okay in time.

Time heals everything, he said.

I told him that I wanted to go back to the apartment. He told me there was no reason to. Everything was either blown up or covered in rubble. Besides, there was still an investigation to be done. Someone had to pay for this.

Finally, I conceded to call my grandparents. Mom's have been dead for years. Dad never got along with them. He has a brother in Florida that I don't know how to reach. Had a brother. Had.

Dad's parents. They answered on the fourth ring, and I told them everything with the detective against my elbow offering me a glass of cold water. They had watched the television. They feared the worst, and I confirmed it.

I hung up the phone after promising I would wait for them. I drank the water and threw up again, this time in the wastebasket. Outside, the custodian put up a caution/wet floor/anti-lawsuit sign.

They came and got me. There was a lot of tears, a lot of hugging and a lot - lot - lot of 'I know he loved you'. 'Why would someone do this?' 'Why us?'

It became too much for me. A car ride has never felt so long to me. I just sat in the backseat and stared. The sun was about to go down. The sun would set and the sun would rise, and the moon would change through it's cycles and the universe would go on, without me, my dad or Hit-Girl or anyone else.

We are alone. There is nothing else.

When the car stopped, I opened the back door and jumped out.

I always called her Grandma Glasses. She used to bring me little things from junk sales and hole-in-the-wall stores. I loved to tinker and paint and things like that. She found an old Batman action figure one time, and the rest was history. I collected everything Superhero I could get my hands on between the ages of 6 and 9. I had an old crate full of action figures. They weren't all the same size, or the same make, and you better believe that Marvel and DC were well represented. I crafted epic mosaics of action, adventure and larger-than-life villains who always got their comeuppance.

There are always happy endings, right?

Grandma gave me the Batman figure. She gave me five dollars for no reason more than once out of her purse, just to be nice. She used to sleep on a mattress in the living room when she'd stay and I would sneak down and we'd talk for hours. Grandpa Dave, who I'm named after never seemed to come along. He was a tired old man and somehow he stuck around. Maybe he was waiting for me to become a man.

_"Would you give me a hug? My daddy just died."_

I know how you feel now.

I know the pain.

I know the regret.

The regret.

The fucking regret.

I can't even remember the last thing I said to my dad.

I hated him for being normal, remember?

It stings even worse than the anger. It makes me feel tired. It makes me weak inside. The anger is keeping me up. The anger is always going to be there and I know in my mind that only one of these things can be done away with.

I'll regret as long as I live.

I'll have anger as long as he lives.

She got out of the car when I ran away. She chased me for almost a block, screaming for me. Poor woman. She's lost a son and a grandson in the same day.

Grandpa never left his spot. I think more than a small piece of him died that day as well.

I made it here to the alley, and I took the suit out of my bag.

The suit was stained and dirty and the belt's stitching was beginning to pop at the top seam, but it has never felt so natural. Not my second skin. My _only_ skin.

~;~;~;~

The first event in the first hour of the existence of Not Kick-Ass is uneventful until the 20 minute mark. A shady character stands in the alcove of a closed-down barber shop, leaning against the familiar red and white pole, no longer turning. He is approached by a few people at a time. Hands out his little packets. Smokes his cigarettes. Smiles to himself.

I approach him from the left. He sees me coming and freezes.

The first hit to his face is with my fist. It's a start.

He goes into his coat for something and I kick him in the face. He spits blood and two teeth drop from his mouth and rattle against the drain next to the curb. He curls into a ball and I kick him until I can no longer feel my leg from the shin down. I don't know if he's unconcious or dead, but I get into his coat.

There's bags of this powder and bags of this green stuff and these things and that. I toss it all into the street and go into the other pocket. The poor bastard groans. He's not dead.

I get up and cross the street. Someone has stopped watching from the building I approach and ducks back into their home. It's not enough.

I find another thug to beat on, but I don't feel any better.

I get swung at and I get more than one pistol yanked in my direction, but nothing can keep me down.

I tear through street scum one by one. All night long. Three pimps. Two more drug dealers. A small-time punk trying to sell stolen property. A pimply-faced teenager that could be Toddy's younger brother, whose only crime is trying to talk me out of another hit to a punk's face.

They watch, when they see. The ones that are up late enough.

They want to watch it. They want to understand violence the way I do.

This is how people are.

This is why we wear masks. So there can be no consequences for being who we truly are.

It goes on and on and on. The sun won't be coming up for some time and I can't stop. When you know what you have to do, and it's so close, you stop feeling so damn tired all the time.

When 8am rolls around and the sun has been up, I strip out of the suit and sit back in the alley. Outside, cars go by. My cellphone buzzes in my pocket for the thousandth time. I have four missed calls from Toddy. Two from Marty. One from school. Seven from my grandparents' ancient landline, three from an unknown number and six from Katie Deauxma.

I call Katie back first. Stupid.

"Dave."

She knows.

"I'm fine, Katie."

"I know that you're not. I want to make sure that you _will_ be."

"Life goes on, Katie. You've got more than one life to worry about now. Take care of yourself."

I hit the red button. The call ends. She calls back. I hit the Fuck You button over and over. After a half hour, she stops calling.

I walk out into the street.

They say coincidence is God's way of letting you know he's still around. That he's still watching, every minute.

This must be him laughing.

The motorcycle comes to a stop at the end of the alley. I can tell by her demeanor that she has been riding around for the better part of the night, looking at me.

"I slept in a greenhouse on a roof last night." She tells me. "It wasn't bad, but the birdcage on the next roof kept me up half the night."

We don't talk about my dead Dad.

It would only be fair. We don't talk about hers, either.

~:~:~:~  
**Hit-Girl.**  
~:~:~:~

The news is standard, expected and as always, completely unbiased. Tongue firmly in cheek planted now.

Hit-Girl has sent four cops to the hospital, allegedly killed three small-timers in the Genovese's rebuilding crime family and blown up an apartment in the past 48 hours.

On the blogs where we're still famous, people are calling foul.

Kick-Ass has earned his own claim to infamy over the past night. Seven people are admitted to local hospitals. Two are in comas. One is in critical condition. The other four say the same things.

Kick-Ass beat me.

He wouldn't stop.

He was crazy.

He was screaming.

He didn't seem to care.

He was angry.

I slept right where I told him. On a bench in a rooftop greenhouse, enduring the neighborly birds all night. I woke up on the ground under the bench, having rolled in my sleep.

I can't keep doing this.

But I have Kick-Ass. He has me.

We have something to look forward to now.

Something to live for. Something to die for.

Something to kill for, right?

That's how the song goes.

I stop the bike and he gets on. It's risky riding around this time in the morning, but after 7am half of New York is dead until 11am, when the first round of lunch shifts start. I take us off the road and hide the motorcycle in a narrow alley between tenements.

We go to the roof. He looks at me, then walks to the edge and looks back.

"I stood on a roof like this one time. I wanted to jump it."

"I stood on a roof like this one time. I did jump it."

"We're different, Hit-Girl."

"Not anymore."

"What kept you going?" He looks at me. "What's kept you going through all of it?"

"I guess I told myself that Dad would have wanted me to live a good life, if he couldn't give me one."

"It was a lie."

"Yes, but it was all I knew. Learn to accept that."

"I wasn't born without a conscience." He says.

"No. You were just born without a spot on your slate. Instead of filling it, you wanted to break it. That's the way people are."

He looks at me again.

"I became Kick-Ass because I wanted to help people. I've hurt people because of it. A lot of people. More than you know. How do you think I feel about that?"

"The world has enough problems without hearing about ours. We do what we can do. Not what we choose to do. Haven't you gotten that yet?"

Maybe this sinks in. We're both tired. We both want so badly to give up. Even I do.

One thing my Dad always said. He always said, "One day, you'll understand."

I would understand one day when he taught me to hold my first M4 carbine. I would understand one day when we changed living conditions ten times a year, always that silver case being dragged behind him. I would understand one day that it was all a lie.

...and it still feels good. Pretending it's all still real.

Nothing is real until you're dead. Death is reality's knockout punch.

He leans down and drop to one knee, looking out over the city.

"I wasn't with you today at the apartment. Why did you let them live? Since when do you care about a beat cop's life?"

"They didn't have wedding rings. They haven't known real suffering yet."

Tender.

_"The dead cannot cry out for justice; it is a duty of the living to do so for them."  
~Lois Bujold~_


	10. Carrying this torch

~:~:~:~  
**Red Mist.**  
~:~:~:~

"I'm going to take care of this."

"Why?"

"Because you're being reckless. You're being reckless, and you're not going to let it go. I know how stubborn you are, Chris. So I'm going to take care of it."

"Explain."

Six large crates of comics are in the corner.

The boxes themselves have become damp from trapped moisture and sag under the weight of so many issues, but each comic is sealed in a plastic sleeve, preserved on the inside. The silver case is behind the desk. I've changed the combination to one I'll remember.

This loft isn't much better than the last one.

I've been here before.

"I'm putting the word out to the dealers on the streets. They're going to keep an eye out for these two. They'll be looking to draw you out. They'll start attacking the business."

He's good. He's very good. Sarcasm.

Great Uncle Carl, you surprise me.

"Take care of it.." I resign. "But make sure they all know the risk involved. The little bitch is crazy. Kick-Ass will fold like a wet bedsheet the minute they grab him. I would PREFER alive, if they can do that."

They won't be delivered to me alive. The odds are low.

When the enforcers are bored, their trigger fingers itch.

"Chris. I know I can't keep you off the streets for long, but just don't get in the way. Let our men handle this. There's a call for blood on these two. After all... your father was a very special friend to all of us. A good man. When are _you_ going to be able to say the same about yourself?"

The dad angle. He throws it in my face one last time.

Finally, I say what I've wanted.

"I'll own this one day. All of it. I'll leave behind something bigger than my dad _ever_ wanted me to. Don't lie to yourself, Uncle Carl. You don't want to run things. You want to take orders. Otherwise, you wouldn't be keeping the vultures at bay for _me_ so long. You just want someone who will reward your loyalty at the top. I know that's the fact. You're too goddamn stupid to do this yourself."

He pauses and looks at me. Something clicks. Against chance, he laughs and shakes his head.

"Well, loyalty is rewarded, and so are results." I tell him. "Deliver both, I'll take care of you."

They said I would never be like my father. Now I have spoken just like he would. I tried for a month there early on. Wore the suits. Sat in the offices taking calls. Trying to be something I didn't have passion for.

But I understood. I knew that it wasn't about the money or even about the power. It was about the legacy.

How many people know who Jack Ruby was? Maybe 3 out of 10 on a good day?

How many people know who _Lee Harvey_ was?

Nerd? We're all nerds in our own way. Nerds would just rather collect comic books or critique movies than brag about how much we can benchpress, or how many touchdown passes that a quarterback for our favorite team averages a week.

I'm that type of nerd. I actually counted how many films Johnny Depp has done with Tim Burton vs. How many Burton had done with Elfman one afternoon with the help of IMDb.

The point is the villain.

What did the last three Supporting Actor Oscars have in common?

I wrote that threatening promise so long ago, back when I had nothing but hot air. Now, I have everything at my fingertips. When this is over with, I'll be set for life.

I make a phone call, waiting on one of the guys downstairs to bring up dinner. I peek out the window every few minutes. No hellions of death tonight.

After the late dinner, I sit at my desk and turn on the lamp. I selected one of the less valuable issues from the silver case earlier. The 1967 Silver Age Daredevil #34. Two reprints have come and gone but this is original. It's cheap compared to some of the Spider-Mans and Avengers I fould in there. Half of them have been sold. There was only one I kept. The rest are waiting to be sold, enjoyed while they last in my possession.

They've gone on to fund a lot of things, but I've been putting most of the money away.

I wait on a call back. I've given explicit instructions that I want to be called when they're spotted. I've also told them very carefully not to screw this up or kill them unless absolutely necessary.

Now it's time to wait.

~:~:~:~  
**Kick-Ass.**  
~:~:~:~

"If you're done beating up on street scum, we have work to do tonight." She says.

We store away the motorcycle and find a quiet Mom & Pop diner downtown. It's a few minutes past breakfast hours but she turns on the cuteness factor and gets waffles. A hot fudge sundae afterwards. I try to drink a cup of coffee. It's too sweet and even though it's hot enough to burn the roof of my mouth, I just slug it back.

"Eat something." She says, turning over the menu and handing it to me. I put it down and finish the coffee. Outside, a cop car drives by and I tense for just a moment before I remember the windows of the diner are tinted.

We're sitting by the window so we can see anyone coming in or going out. We're safe for now. We're just wanted by the police and the mob. It's not a big deal, right?

"I'm not hungry." I say.

There's plenty of money to burn. She tells me that her father always tipped 5$.

"It didn't matter if we just had sodas or a huge dinner. He said that 5$ was good enough for anything." She closes her eyes. Remembering. "He always used to say that until the commies took over the tax system, it could buy a pack of cigarettes."

We both smile, but neither of us laugh. She makes me take a bite of her sundae with her. Different spoon. Don't be concerned.

"I'm glad that you can do it, though." She quips.

"Do what?"

"Smile. Smile so soon after. Have you really seen me smile in a year, Kick-Ass?"

Nobody is within earshot, and I feel weary to the challenge of trying to hide my identity much longer. For all I knew, the detectives have put two and two together or dug something out of the rubble that used to be my home that points me out as Kick-Ass anyway.

"No, I haven't. It's a sad time."

"Let me ask you something." She sets her spoon in the glass, standing straight up in the bottom of the dish, sticky with hot fudge.

"Go ahead."

"You said that we are who we choose to be. Does that mean that we choose our feelings too?"

"I don't understand."

"If we choose who we are. We can choose how we feel, right?"

"Yes... no..."

I picture Brett Ratner stepping into the director's chair of my life.

She scoops the rest of the fudge out and puts the spoon in her mouth.

"Yes-no?" She puts the spoon down.

"I don't know. What does it matter? We're not going to be lucky forever, Hit-Girl."

"We never were lucky. We lived to remember all of this tragedy, didn't we?"

Tender.

~;~;~;~

There were a lot of names on Big Daddy's list.

Five of them were never finished. They were meant to be stepping stones, all the way to the final boss of this entire game he had crafted for himself and his daughter.

Instead, I came along and dropped satisfaction and sadness directly on this girl's head. One day, I won't be able to live with myself.

We decide to start with those. We don't talk about killing or not. If I say no killing, there will be killing. If I remain silent, she will kill anyway.

Her decision isn't unexpected. Dead men will tell tales after all. They'll send a message. We'll go step by step through them.

As you can expect, nothing is going to go according to plan. Hell, I know that going in. There's no other choice.

We're going to let Hit-Girl do what Hit-Girl does best. For now.

At 10pm, we round the corner at Washington St. The basement apartment is crammed under the foundation of a tenement row. It's quiet, it's feared by middle-class people and it's where the Genoveses carve our their lowest common denominator. Meth and crack for the street walkers. The bottom of the barrel scraped.

I approach the door. A rat runs past my feet. I'm wearing my suit under my jacket and jeans. It's started to rain again outside. The air is still humid and hot, making the jacket uncomfortable. I knock on the door twice.

"Who is it?" A voice grumbles.

Red Mist knows who I am.

Maybe they have my picture.

But we only need to get the door open. We just need the door open, and things can start happening.

Hit-Girl waits in an alcove behind me. A coiled cobra, ready to spring.

"Louie sent me."

Of all the names I ever heard in mob movies, Louie always struck me as the least stereotypical.

"That a fact? Come on in."

I smell a trap. Hit-Girl, I hope you're ready.

This guy is tall and skinny and smells like cheap cologne and cheaper cigars, but he seems to know a Louie.

I start to step in. Behind me, a girl in purple runs out from behind the corner and sprints for the door. I pass the greeter and turn, grabbing the pepper spray from the pocket of my jeans and unloading it in his face. He screams and clutches his face. Hit-Girl jumps over me and sinks a knife balls deep in his chest. He grabs her by the neck and she twists the knife. His grip slackens.

Hit-Girl runs back into the alley and begins to circle around to the fire escape of the tenement surrounding the apartment. Seperate entrances will be violated, as perverse as that sounds.

I'm kicking the dead guy out of the way and hauling the door shut when a 300-pound Italian bull comes out to check the ruckus.

...and everything was going so well.

He goes for his gun and I slap it out of his hand. He lunges to grab me by the neck and I unload the rest of the pepper in his face. I throw off my jacket and draw the taser, firing it against his neck.

The drug dealer of the household is in the next room. There are two large satchels on the table and he's sliding small stacks of bills into each, glancing at the door to see when his guests will come back.

We didn't expect to drop in on their weekly Mob Tithe. 11%, right off the top. You've seen the movies.

Mr. Drug Dealer hears the racket and stands up. By the time I barrel into the room, Hit-Girl has already made her grand entrance through the opposite door and drawn her gun. She shoots him through the shoulder. The round exits clean and I feel a slight breeze past my temple. A spark behind me as the cop killer bores through the metal door.

He surrenders at this point. I decide to put the suit on. I don't know if any of the neighbors have heard the shots and called the police.

"Let's finish it." I say, waiting for Hit-Girl to execute him. She pistol-whips him instead, laying him out.

"Maybe the poor bastard will wake up from the smoke and escape with a few scars to think about." She mumbles. Surprising behavior.

I go back to the motorcycle and take a large container of paint thinner and gasoline mixed together. We douse every wall in every room and pour a little trail through them all. The police will never get here in time to haul up anything useful in forensics.

She strikes a match and tosses it. We watch it burn for a minute on the bike and then take off. We wait behind a Marathon station for almost 10 minutes before the sirens pass. When there's no more stragglers to go to the most exciting thing to happen since this afternoon when some kid's apartment blew up, we go back to 6th street.

We need a hideout. With a fake waterfall, maybe holographic. A big neon symbol on the way and all of these overpriced hydraulic lifts with thousands of LEDs and a dozen smoke machines, even though nobody outside of this hideout will ever see them anyway.

We're going to need a hideout regardless. I don't have anywhere to sleep with four intact walls and neither does Mindy.

I'm 17 years old. Even if I wasn't probably wanted by the police by now for either being Kick-Ass or running away from my legal guardian pro-temps, I can't just rent a motel room somewhere.

"I saw an old place I used to know when I was going around the city the other day, while you were at school." She says. "It's not far from here. We can walk." We pack up the suits in my bag and she goes to take the rifle case with her, and stops. "Where's the medical kit?"

I just realize that hard evidence is sitting under my bed. Under the dust and rubble and all of the sheets and the mattress frame, now broken of course, there's a military-grade first-aid kit that could only be acquired by a freaky drug addict with good connections or a criminal like this 'Hit Girl' who shoots cops and blows up apartments.

The media searched for a name, and they found those old forums where Hit-Girl and I were legends. It will be too easy to demonize us both day after day until we are finally hauled in or identified in the remnants of a bloody and gruesome murder spree that will be ended when our luck runs out.

We're killing people now. Just like she and Daddy used to do.

~:~:~:~  
**Hit-Girl.**  
~:~:~:~

The crack den is a cake walk compared to the old days, when I would face crowded apartments or bistros full of fat mob suits only willing to really swing on a little girl after they watched her slaughter the first two or three.

Gasoline and paint thinner was Daddy's favorite. He said it burned really bright and it burned really fast. Of course it was also untraceable, being available at the nearest supercenter and gas station in gallons.

I lead Kick-Ass to one of our former safehouses. It's a half-constructed apartment, abandoned when the permits with the city didn't clear. It's still just like we left it. The exterior is almost finished. It's a lot warmer than the outside. The floor is a mixture of concrete slab and bare wooden supports. The one room with finished hardwood is covered in a layer of dust and there are spiders everywhere.

When we stayed here some nights that Daddy thought we hadn't taken every precaution to avoid leaving evidence behind, he sat in this room with a folding chair, watching out the small window with a rifle laid across his lap.

"Try and sleep." He tells me, sitting against the wall.

"Only if you do too."

~:~:~:~  
**Kick-Ass.**  
~:~:~:~

Sleep? I doubt it, but I'm more tired than I know, and I manage to drift off for a few moments to let her do the same.

She falls asleep using my bag for a pillow. There's a gun by her side. I stand up and walk over to sit down beside her, and my cellphone is buzzing in my pocket again.

Text message.

_Please call me._

It's from Katie.

Bite the bullet. Swallow the lead.

"It's late." I say when she answers. I'm in the next room, sitting on a bundle of brown carpet that nobody collected in the corner.

"I know. I can't sleep, Dave. I'm not surprised you can't either." She sniffles. "I'm glad you called."

"You've been crying."

"Yeah. I just had a bad day."

I have the monopoly on bad days and I'm really reaching for the worst week of human existence. I think the Normandy Invasion is getting a run for it's money.

"I'm sorry. About earlier. I owe you an apology." I ramble out.

"It's okay. It's okay." She's still crying. Not for me. For herself. I'm the shoulder to cry on. "Dave, when are you coming back to school?"

"Maybe tomorrow. The world has enough problems without hearing about mine."

Big Daddy's words in Mindy's mouth in mine.

"I thought we were going to be friends again, Dave. Friends listen."

"Friends understand. You're not my friend, Katie."

"Why not, Dave?"

"Because I never really saw what you were. I just saw what I wanted." Reality is a bitch, and the pregnant girl can know no less.

"I need all the friends I can have now, Dave. It's a rough time."

"Things happen, Katie. Life goes on. My father was murdered today, remember?."

Suddenly there's a chatter of words on the other side of the line. Her mother has barged into her bedroom, catching her on her cellphone.

"I have to go." She says. "Dave, call me tomorrow."

When the men in the black car pulled up outside of the first place in Hit-Girl's plan, we had finished watching the blaze.

They had been told to pay a visit to the local crew on deck and make sure that they knew to keep an eye out for two kids that liked to dress up. They picked a bad one for last.

But now the others know, and the next one won't be so easy. Just because part of my skull is now laced with metal doesn't mean that getting pistol-whipped doesn't hurt real bad.

They wanted to follow us, but the police were about to be around the area and they wouldn't be able to slip away so easily. They let us go and promised each other to report that we had been long gone by the time they showed up.

Now that Red Mist knows what we're up to, it's just in the cards to keep at it and wait for him to slip.

My phone beeps, telling me that I have six voicemails from the past 24 hours.

The last one is my dad at work, telling me that he'll be home late so I should make myself breakfast.

I'm finally able to cry.

_"Our heroes are people and people are flawed."  
~Randy Milholland~_


	11. Something in the air

~:~:~:~  
**Kick-Ass.**  
~:~:~:~

I cry.

When I'm finished, I go to sleep.

The world needs to see Dave Lizewski again. At least for a day.

First things first.

I wake up before the sun comes up, and I take a bottle of water that's been in my bag since lunchtime yesterday and go into the bathroom.

The walls are bare drywall and the floor is dusty, grimy tile. There is no light. The tub is a porcelain slab anchored into the wall. Of course, there's no water in the sink.

I hang my head over the basin and pour the rest of the water across the back of my head. I rinse out my matted hair and wash my face with what's left. There is no mirror, just a hole in the wall where a medicine cabinet would be.

I can't look at myself. Then I won't be able to finish this the right way.

Mindy is still asleep and I hate leaving her, but I'll be back before she wakes up. I take the keys and take the motorcycle back to what's left of the apartment. Every unit above the wreckage has been cleared out for the night. They're still not 100% on the structural integrity of the building. There are two cops in the lobby and one on each floor. The parking lot is a separate crime scene. The police car that Hit-Girl told me about has been hauled away for the shot holes across the side to be examined, but it will come back to a police-issue weapon with police-issue rounds.

The parking lot is still a wreck. There were three collisions when scared tenants fled the building. The gate is broken at the end of the lot and a lamp-post is leaning on it's side. The security guard is really taking his job seriously tonight. Sitting under the patio near the garden and flips through the tracks on his iPod Touch with his thumb. He doesn't notice me. I'm not Kick-Ass right now.

The apartment is destroyed. Yellow tape twists in the wind by the hole where the kitchen counters used to be. The fridge is dented and the door hangs open. There's nothing in there now but chunky milk and three dill pickles in a big jar from the cannery. The frozen dinners in the freezer are intact and the power in parts of the apartment is still on. The light in my room doesn't work, though. I go under the bed and take out the medical kit, closing it up.

Chalk has been used to mark the entrance into every room. Portable lights were set up earlier at the edge of the hole and now they're against the wall in the kitchen. I picture an entire forensics team going over the kitchen inch by inch by inch, finding nothing to suggest anything but a random bombing possibly perpetrated by a purple-wearing girl with a mask who kills people.

Yeah, weird things happen.

I look around, thinking about any other personal mementos I want to take. My Macbook is still in my locker back at school. My bed has been turned over and I think the only reason that the kit wasn't found is because they stopped there. The ceiling is cracked and a pile of rubble is on the floor from the overturned mattress. I open a side pocket on the pack and stuff in a couple of shirts and underwear and socks from my drawers. I'll need clean clothes. In the hallway outside of the unit, the guard's radio goes off. The door was open when I got here. I closed it behind me out of habit.

He doesn't notice, and continues on his way. I take the pack and walk out into the hallway. When I get outside, I walk around the lot and hop the fence to get back to where I stashed the motorcycle. It's a short ride back to the derelict apartment and the sun is coming up by now.

~:~:~:~  
**Hit-Girl.**  
~:~:~:~

_Daddy._

My neck hurts when I wake up. The bookbag was lumpy and I rolled to the side in my sleep.

The corner of Algebra II, Second Edition has been digging into the side of my neck the whole night.

Dave is changing in the next room. He puts his jacket on and looks at me.

"You're going to school." I say for him.

"I guess I am."

"So the police can yank you out of your first class and haul you in? So your grandparents can take you out of class and drag you to stay with them? So Red Mist and the Mob can find you and kill you?" Pick one.

"So I can see my friends. So I can do something normal... do some classwork. Do something besides get chased,,,."

He seems intent, and he's stubborn. He's going.

"...talk to Katie. I dunno."

~:~:~:~  
**Kick-Ass.**  
~:~:~:~

I don't really have a choice if I want to graduate. I've been slipping as it is. Maybe if I live through this, I can start applying to more colleges. State doesn't like my 2.7. Another semester in the Credit Crash Course on the computers could help.

If we make it. If we don't die.

I take some money from her things and buy a chocolate chip muffin and milk at the cafeteria before first period. Everyone seems to be looking at me or talking about me, but I know it's all in my head. Not that many people knew me, and it's not like the city hasn't seen it's share of disaster by now.

Every generation has a moment.

First period goes by and I sit up straight. Todd gives me a pencil and I promise him that we can talk later. Right now, I just want to be as normal as I can. I know the answer to a question or two and I get the work paper done before everyone else in the class. I can still be a bit of a nerd when I want to be.

I finish early and read one of my comics from my bag.

Second period, I finally get called down to the office.

Your grandparents called this morning.  
Sorry for your loss.  
Should be home today.  
Worried.  
Grandparents.  
Call them.  
Sorry.

I can tell that Grandma hasn't slept a wink all night by her voice on the phone.

I tell her that I am sorry for running away and that I am fine. They want to come get me now.

"No, I have Credit Recovery last period and I need to graduate on time. I'll come there after school. I'll be there by 4."

She makes me promise. I'm sorry to lie to her.

This is the only away to do it. Otherwise, more people that I love will die.

I go back to class and put my head down. I read the entire book last year in Composition TD already. We have a packet due at the end of the week and I've already done the entire thing. I've bought myself a little time to think about third period when I'll see Katie on the way past the lunchroom.

Marty buys me a soda without me asking him to. Todd gets all serious for a minute and tells me what a good friend I am and he'll always be there and all the other things he rehearsed with his parents the night before. The irony? His parents never really liked me. His mother probably cried when she heard. Mothers do that.

"Todd. It's okay. Let's not talk about it."

"They're going to send you to the counselor, man." Marty puts his iPhone on the lunch table and opens the Tic Tac Toe app. I shake my head. He puts it on the other side of the tray and plays a few games with Todd.

"My grandparents will send me to a therapist if they get the chance anyway."

Or one will chase my ambulance. The physical therapist at the hospital that got me walking again seemed to know his stuff about physical scars. They're easy to fix. We can see them. We have medicine.

Every generation has that moment.

I bypass the lunchroom on the way to third period, but Katie isn't looking for me, so she happens to find me.

"Dave. Why are you here?" She asks.

"I wanted to come. Couldn't deal with sitting around all day."

"Well, I have to get to class. Can we talk after school?"

"Maybe."

"Maybe's not a good answer. Maybe means no to some people."

"Then no. Not today. Call me tonight." I say.

She doesn't look too happy, but she goes on to keep her attendance intact.

She's already starting to show a bit.

Every generation has that moment.

That moment of disaster. This moment is where everything changes. Time stands still, and the whole world takes one giant step back.

For our grandparents' generation, it was the _moment _that JFK was assassinated below that grassy knoll.

For our parents' generation, it was the _moment_ of the Challenger's explosion on the launchpad.

For a lot of my generation, it was the _moment_ that people flew planes into the World Trade Center, and the Pentagon.

For me, it was somewhere between the _moment_ that I was stabbed, the _moment_ that I was tumbled by that fucking car, the _moment_ that Hit-Girl saved my life for the first time, or maybe the _moment_ that I watched Big Daddy's face splatter across the floor with electricity still neutral and sliding through my balls, waiting for another charge.

The moments where things went right... where I thought I had found my partner in (stopping) crime or when Mindy told me that she didn't want to be Hit-Girl anymore... the moments when I could take a breath and relax. They were few and far between.

I know what it was. It was the moment that my father was killed. In his sleep. After going to work at a second job he hated more than his first in order to pay the bills for us. 25% removed from every paycheck to dent the mountain of hospital bills from the last year. Killed because of the things I've done. Maybe I didn't arm the bomb, but I might as well have. That's the regret.

Now those bills will be on someone else's head, and I can cry about that later.

~:~:~:~  
**Red Mist.**  
~:~:~:~

_Tonight. _

_They got away._

Things never work out right. Not even when you do them yourself.

Uncle Carl told me not to do anything stupid. Well, stupid is going to have to settle, because I've got to do _something_ besides sit up here and wait for **him** to take care of things.

Maybe when they're dead, I'll tell Uncle Carl how things are really going to be. He looks down on me, even if he thinks he doesn't.

I've been writing it for a while now, and when the time is right, I'll give it to him. Enough people respect my Father's Name to make sure that the orders inside are carried out. My ace in the hole. The joint you hid away when you were high and forgot about until you were out.

The file is printed off in a red folder marked RM in black sharpie. There's notes behind the pages and it's been altered twice. When it's perfect, it'll be signed. It's the next step. Phase 2.

I'm not just a passive suit, and I'm definitely not a passive Red Suit.

"How's the special order coming along?"

I gave my Dad a list and he listened. He was desperate and I begged him. Mostly, I begged him. He was good at hiding when he was desperate. He always had a way out. Someone to step in for him. Take care of things. He never really learned that some things require direct action.

It's back to the basics, but with a twist.

He had someone make the suit. Didn't tell me who. Told me he called in a favor from a friend of one of the underbosses who worked in garments and things. It was the season before the City Con and there was a big demand on the internet for spandex materials and superhero-cliche tools. When the suit came, it did it's job.

The vest came after. It was especially made for me and sewn under the suit. After it came, I spent time working up the nerve to send the mask to her. Finally, I got bored.

The new suit is going to be perfect. It's going to be perfect and I'm going to put it to better use than this uncomfortable prop that wore out it's welcome not too long after that charade I played for Dad.

They tell me that it will be done soon. They're getting a lot more than it's worth, just to make sure that it fits the specifications I gave.

I make another call, and open the red folder. The notes tab is almost full but I cross out **image and business** and take down their address. I've been moved around so much these past few days that I'll be going to pick it up myself, to make sure I get it on time.

Uncle Carl calls me back. He's not very happy, and he reminds me to listen to him. They'll find them and get them soon. Just be patient.

No need. They're still coming. They don't want to wait any more than I do.

I love being the bad guy.

_"It is hard to fight an enemy who has outposts in your head."_  
~Sally Kempton~


	12. A little bit of mercy

~:~:~:~  
**Kick-Ass.**  
~:~:~:~

During the Civil War, soldiers found a use for their spare rounds.

They were melted down and made into what we know today as brass knuckles.

If you use brass knuckles wrong, you can break your fingers.

If you use them properly, you can break every bone in someone's body.

The room is really hot now. It's been almost an hour and Hit-Girl is still finding the strength to punch the bastard. His face is a pastiche of blood, swollen flesh and bone which glints white where the skin is torn and hangs around his eyes. His pupils are two bloodshot orbs, one still looking at her, the other off-center and strangely opaque now.

"Tell me where he is." She repeats.

He shakes his head and spits blood, and she gets the pliers back out.

It was her idea, after all.

She said that she had gone to the next spot while I was at school, and it was deserted. They'd moved house.

She wanted to get a head start, and move past torching drug dens to get attention. Let those ones in the car follow us somewhere. Set a little trap. Take one of them alive, and get information. I agreed to it. I helped plan it. I forgot how much of a grudge she bears against these 'guineas'.

My grudge, if you could call it that, is only fixated on one person. For now.

She closes the vice of the pliers around one of his two undamaged fingers. Six are broken and two are laying in the puddle of blood and sweat coagulating on the floor. The pliers are the only tool not soaked in blood, the others on the floor nearby, from the knuckledusters to the buck knife, have all done their job and are covered with varying amounts of tomato soup, italian.

The bone snaps, and he groans, apparently passing out. She slaps him with an open palm, bringing him back into harsh reality.

"Wake up, fucker. We're not done yet."

I feel sorry for the poor bastard. I really do.

~:~:~:~  
**Hit-Girl.**  
~:~:~:~

Kick-Ass and I came up with a plan, and we took the bike out tonight.

We went to the second place on the list. It wasn't occupied any longer, like I had seen in the morning. These drug dens are portable enough to be moved in a matter of hours. It's how business is done. The only thing left behind is moldy furniture and strange smells in the air.

They showed up a little bit after we did. Kick-Ass pushed the bike down the alley, and predictably, they chased him. I was on the roof above.

The first one got it before he stood up. The driver's side window was shattered and the round sparked against the road, the hole through his skull spat a ring of smoke. The second one I shot in the knee. The third one never made it out of the car. I roped down quickly and took care of him.

Kick-Ass knocked out the wounded one with his taser, and I took the car while he took the bike. The windows were shattered and it was covered in blood, but we couldn't triple up on the bike with an unconcious mobster, could we?

He woke up when we were dragging him out of the car at the hideout. Kick-Ass gave him another jolt, just for safety's sake. We took him upstairs between us and I sharpened the tools while Kick-Ass duct taped the thug down to an old chair.

When he woke up again, everything was ready. Problem was, he's a stubborn bastard.

~:~:~:~  
**Kick-Ass.**  
~:~:~:~

Hit-Girl has lost her patience, it seems. She sinks the buck knife into the top of his shoulder just a centimeter. She slices downward, cutting through his shirt and digging under his collarbone. He screams and twists against the knife. She turns it against his own movements, rupturing the wound further. He leans forward and slams his head against hers.

She steps back, and puts a hand to her head. She shakes it off.

"Amateur." She takes out one of her handguns and shoots him in the gut now. He screams bloody murder and spasms hard enough to tip the chair. She tips it back up and slides her left hand back into the brass rings. _Wham. Wham. Wham. _An ear that's been hanging by a single piece of skin for some time finally comes off and lands on the floor, leaving a bloody hole in the side of his head. She digs a gloved finger into the hole and turns her hand around.

This could go on all night.

I step forward, stepping around to look at her.

"You're running out of things to come up with." I hate whiners, but I'm guilty of the same crime myself. "He's not going to say anything."

The bastard looks at me. My stomach tightens. I thought I would enjoy watching this. It's making me sick. Sick enough to puke, but I hold it back. The room smells bad enough already.

Hit-Girl shoves the gun barrel into the hole in his belly and pulls it up, fresh blood dripping through his ruined shirt. Then she puts it against his head. He doesn't move. Against his lap. He starts to struggle again.

"Tell me."

I've never heard this tone in her voice.

It's the tone of someone desperate, even.

He looks away and mutters something I can't make out. She listens, and nods.

"Thank you." She says, then she puts the gun away and picks up the knife.

"What are you going to do now?" I ask.

"Bring him down to my level." She raises the knife over his lap. Without thinking, I grab her arm. She's strong, but I'm bigger. She turns on me.

"Just finish him off and get it over with. You got what you needed."

I can't tell if he's in shock or passed out at this point, but the debate is left to us.

"Fuck you, Kick-Ass. I'm not finished yet." She wrenches her arm from my hand and prepares to go Lorena Bobbit.

"Damn you." I say to nobody in particular, then grab the gun from her holster and before she can protest, I fire three rounds into her plaything's head.

"It was my turn." She says, with the same tone that younger siblings who are wrestled away from the video game controller use.

What a night.

~:~:~:~  
**Red Mist.**  
~:~:~:~

Matt Murdock's father taught him about nonviolence, and he was a fighter.

Bruce Wayne's father taught him about the greater good, and he was a bureaucrat.

Kal-El's father taught him about being a savior, and he could not even save his own world.

My father taught me a lot of things, and he was never a hypocrite.

I don't know what Kick-Ass' father taught him, but subtlety was never one of them.

"We found the car. In a back lot by the canal, Chris. It's been burned out completely. Two, maybe three bodies. We're still looking. The cops are going to find it in the morning."

Sick enough of bad news. I turn my phone off after that.

~:~:~:~  
**Hit-Girl.**  
~:~:~:~

Kick-Ass helps me put the body in two trash bags. One over the top half, one over the bottom. We carry it down to the car and do the same with the other two. They've started to rigor at this point.

Three wrapped bodies in the back, he follows me on the motorcycle. He's still looking at me every few seconds, trying to see if I'm mad about losing out on my chance to castrate the man who gave me the information we need.

I know where Chris Genovese is now. Maybe the worst is behind us. Maybe we haven't even started.

We torch the car. It burns out quickly. All the interior is just plastic and vinyl. We double up and go back to the hideout.

When we get there, he dumps a container of bleach all over the room I set aside for the interrogation, and then he shuts the door and locks it.

"Bleach won't cover the smell long. We'll have to get something stronger."

"Lime." He says. Too many mobster movies he's watched.

"Maybe. We have bigger things to worry about now."

~:~:~:~  
**Kick-Ass.**  
~:~:~:~

"So, where is Red Mist?" I ask Mindy. I go into the bathroom again and take off my mask. She stands behind me in the doorway, takes a lollipop from a pouch on her belt and sticks it in her mouth. Orange.

"If I tell you, you'll run off and get yourself killed without me." She says, biting down into the candy. Crunch.

"You should know." I say.

"We can talk about it on the way." She waves her hand and spits the little white stick out.

The last time we rushed into something like this, we didn't have the element of surprise. Hit-Girl got on the intercom and told John Genovese to make peace with his God. A little kid in a Halloween costume was coming for him.

We don't have that element now, either.

This has all been planned. Maybe not directly to the step, but it's been planned.

One of those things to sleep on. If I could sleep.

"No."

It's almost 9pm. The witness-to-death sickness that slides through my gut even now, aftershocks rolling on top of the standard wave of guilt that comes with shooting someone, I'm not ready to do any more death right now.

Katie's dad picks up the extension when I call. It's too late to go out, she says, but I can come over. To talk.

Hit-Girl says that she's going at midnight. With or without me.

I've got plenty of time. She's not going to do this one alone.

Midnight, she says, or I'll come and find you. We can't pussy out now.

_"Nothing fails like success."  
_~Gerald Nachman~


	13. Tender blur

~:~:~:~**  
Hit-Girl.**  
~:~:~:~

The mask was red. It was like a miniature shield, and Daddy loved it.

He posed with it in the mirror. I was eight years old.

I wasn't allowed to look in the silver case, but I knew how to pick locks.

He insisted. He trusted me.

One day after practice, I went upstairs and I picked the lock.

I look in Dave's bookbag for a pen. I got a few maps the other day, and we have to avoid areas that are full of police.

If he comes.

_Tender is the night  
Lying by your side_

His iPod has turned on in his bag. It's at full volume, and the renovated shell of a living space is so quiet now that I can hear the music through the headphones, as clear as a speaker.

It's been on pause for two days. The battery counter blinks, warning of death in minutes.

_Tender is the touch  
Of someone that you love too much_

I set his bag down and put the iPod on my belt. The clip is meant for a holster, to be detached if more mobility is needed for a quick run or an unarmed attack. The headphones have small rubber clips that slide around my ears.

When he was at school, I went and got everything.

Everything we needed.

Right under the nose of every unmotivated public servant. Through back alleys and around dead-end streets. Between houses and apartments. Nobody is home during the day in this city.

_Tender is the day  
The demons go away_

Daddy walked upstairs. He came into his room, and I was sitting next to the bed opening his case.

There's bad people in the world, Mindy. Bad people hurt Mommy. Bad people want to hurt us, and we have to hurt them first.

It can be fun. You just have to be ready.

It'll be a game. Our fun game.

_Lord I need to find  
Someone who can heal my mind_

There was a lantern in one of the cases. A red one that took batteries. There were also batteries. Big Daddy planned for everything.

Except being gone. He never planned for that.

I was dead. Then I came back.

I set the lantern on the countertop in the kitchen and pick what I want. I make a separate pile for what I need, and try to fit that in one case.

_Come on come on  
Come on get through it_

AR-18L. The L was a smaller, second generation model. The bastard child of Colt's scorned children in the assault rifle family. Four clips for that.

The AR-18 was the sibling of the 15.

Good job, sugar plum.

Six clips for my handguns.

The suit is the last one I found in storage. The last clean one. I change the bandage on my shoulder. It doesn't hurt that much any more.

_Come on come on  
Come on get through it_

The knives are an OSS Kraton and a FGX boot blade. The OSS goes in a sheath in my belt.

I need to be able to move fast. I can't carry the swords and the rifle. Too much weight will slow me down. Daddy always said so.

He caught me opening the case, and he was really mad.

_Come on come on  
Come on_

He said I was old enough to watch the fun movies.

One of my favorites was always the one about the Hitman and the little girl.

In the movie, the Hitman loved the little girl so much that he made sure she would be taken care of when he was gone.

_Love's the greatest thing  
That we have_

It was a lie. That's what Dave says.

What is a lie?

It's what the news channels do, Mindy. They lie about things. They're controlled by Liberals.

If you grow up in it, is it still a lie?

On one of my old belts, I find Condition Red.

_I'm waiting for that feeling  
Waiting for that feeling_

He caught me trying to look in the case, and he slapped me.

When we practiced, we would put on the headgear and the pads and we would fight. He went slow and helped me learn. Sometimes he would hit me, but it would all be for training. For our practice. For our work.

When he slapped me, he meant it.

He slapped me and then he went to grab the case and then he came back and threw me. The wall was hollow and the stud I hit tore the back of my training sweats. It hurt really bad.

I was crying, and he raised his hand to hit me again.

_Waiting for that feeling  
To come_

I didn't need friends. I didn't need school and I didn't need dolls.

I just had Daddy.

I just had Daddy, and he just had me. He had that silver case too, and he slapped me.

He didn't hit me again. He said he was sorry, and then he told me to go rest. I'd had a good day of practice. Tomorrow, more work on the high kick.

Remember, Mindy. Mommy wants justice.

_Tender is the ghost  
The ghost you love the most_

He hit me in the face, because he meant it.

It was personal. Just like the mob.

He didn't say he was sorry again. I washed my face and I cried for a little while.

Like a little girl.

_Hiding from the sun  
Waiting for the night to come_

Condition Red is a super-secret chemical compound. Designed by scientists. For emergencies only. Extreme situations. The strength of ten men.

It kept me alive through the fire, through all of the fighting and it kept me alive when John and his frustrations had a go with me.

I open the little metal vial.

There's still some of that white powder inside. Daddy gave it to me before we came into the city. That was a year ago. It could still work.

The knuckledusters are still in the other room. It reeks of bleach. I clean the blood off them and put them in my belt. Silver ones. Daddy gave me those too.

_Tender is my heart  
I'm screwing up my life_

It's past 11 now. I've just been preparing and cleaning and praying that I'll finish it.

The confidence, Mindy. That's what we have. They won't have that when they face us.

**"Wait until they get a load of me."**

He never told me what was in the case.

I lived the lie.

So keep telling me that we are who we choose to be, Kick-Ass. Keep telling me. You're going to understand one day.

_Lord I need to find  
Someone that can heal my mind_

The mask was like a miniature shield, and Daddy loved it. It was red.

Tonight, I carry it with me.

_Come on come on  
Come on get through it_

We're not who we choose to be.

But we're not who the world makes us.

_Come on come on  
Come on_

We're what we do. What we don't do.

What we have to answer for.

_Love's the greatest thing  
That we have_

Watch me tonight, Daddy.

I'll make you proud.

It made me special.

Whatever you did, I'll always remember that.

I'll always love you.

I'll always miss you.

Because I forgive you.

_"'Tis the most tender part of love, each other to forgive."_  
~John Sheffield~


	14. Going it alone

~;~;~;~  
**Kick-Ass.**  
~;~;~;~

Fuck you, Katie Deauxma.

Fuck you, fuck the bastard growing in your body and fuck this wretched world we live in.

Instead of saying that, I just listen.

"I'm so sorry, Dave." She puts her hand on mine, and I take hers. Her dad looked me up and down and told her that if I was going to be staying the night, we better keep it down. I wonder if he still thinks that I'm her gay best friend.

I let go of her hand after a moment, a gentle squeeze is the only sign of affection that I can give. She starts crying again, and I take a tissue from the box next to her bed and give it to her. The box is pink and the tissues are smeared with some type of smelly lotion that makes me want to wash my hands.

She blows her nose, then looks over at me.

"I know you hate me." She says.

Hate's a strong word, Katie.

I don't hate you. I just hate what you are.

"I don't hate you." I mutter. I can't look her in the eye. Not because I'm lying, but because I'm sick of people shedding tears for me. For others. The world's a bad enough place without hearing about our problems, right?

She sobs again, and I stand up. I want to go to the door, walk out and figure out what I'm going to do about Mindy. It's already past 11.

"You don't hate me. Sure." She stands up too, and reaches for my hand again. I pretend not to notice, so she takes my wrist and puts her fingers against mine. "You don't hate me, Dave. You have no reason to at all." Sarcasm is lost to the weary.

"You're pregnant. People are going to hate you anyway." I try to imagine Mindy's take on this situation. _The liberals will cut it out of you if you give them the chance._

"People hate me anyway."

"I wonder why."

"Stop it, Dave."

For a moment, I catch a glimpse of the real Katie Deauxma. Not pregnant. Not nice, and not smiling. The Katie Deauxma that just found out her gay best friend is straight. Not the Katie Deauxma that I wanted.

Finally, something clicks.

"I shouldn't have come here." I admit.

"You really think that?" She goes back to the bed. I sit on a chair near the door. It's one of those undersized white wicker chairs that are more for show than rest.

"I can't pin you down sometimes, Katie. It's frustrating. It's not fair."

"I didn't ask for this." She says, looking down at her stomach. She'll show more soon. A matter of time before it's impossible to hide.

What I want to say rises in my throat. I stay quiet. Maybe it's worth a try, being nice instead of being jaded for once in the past year.

"If you want to be my friend, I have to know who you are." I finally say.

"You know me." She whispers.

"I thought I did."

~;~;~;~  
**Red Mist.**  
~;~;~;~

I go downstairs to stretch my legs. One of the enforcers sits at the card table, waiting on the one standing in the foyer, talking on his cellphone to his dame of the week and promising her a very romantic evening soon. The other two are at the end of the hall, sharing a joint by the window.

The fridge isn't full, and I want something besides lunchmeat.

The two burners at the end of the hall are laughing and giggling and acting more high than they really are, just to enjoy the contact buzz. The one on the phone has someone new in his ear, and the conversation isn't a happy one.

I walk out through the hall and go down the stairs onto the lower floor. It's nicer than the machine shop strewn with the guts of computers and assembly workings, but it's still dirty and warm for what used to be a meat locker.

There's a few lines of those rolling metal wheels that are used to wheel down heavy sides of beef. I think about the workers in their bloodstained smocks and hair nets, cutting fat away from the bone and stripping the meat of it's delicious flavor at the whims of the USDA choice screening.

At least the meat we buy at the supermarket here hasn't been tainted or spoiled and ultimately recut and repackaged for a later date. There's no Food Lions in this state.

Meat tastes good. Don't let them tell you different.

There's still a few of those nifty metal hooks behind the plastic divider in the other room, hanging from the ceiling. There's a catwalk up above and an office with a large front window that let the supervisor keep an eye on his rabble.

My father worked in a place like this when he was my age. His father was rich and powerful but he never gave him a dime. He didn't believe in allowance and there weren't chores to be done with so many servants around the house. He appreciated money and hard work, and he treated every co-worker through his life as a friend.

He was a good man. Nobody understands that.

When he found out someone was killing his friends, he got mad.

I had a plan and he was desperate. When it was over, he was dead.

It's not my fault.

Lizewksi. Dave. Kick-Ass. His father's dead too.

Guilty.

The girl. Hit-Girl.

Guilty.

The bloodstains in the grout in the tile will never come out. The drain will always stink of blood and that awful, musty smell of rotting flesh.

Always reminding us. Death's funny that way.

I go back up to the living space. The one at the card table is still solo.

"Go get some food." I say. "If he gets off the phone before you get back, I'll make sure he doesn't look at your cards."

While he gets his shit together, my phone rings.

Uncle Carl.

"Hello."

"Chris. You ok?"

"Fine. Just fine."

~;~;~;~  
**Kick-Ass.**  
~;~;~;~

I wake up suddenly, and it's past 12.

Katie talked for the longest time, then we laid on the bed.

I wish I could say that we reconciled, and that we made sweet, passionate and fiery love right here on this bed, and I finally lost my cherry to the girl I always wanted.

No dice. She fell asleep, just grateful to have someone nearby.

It's almost 20 minutes past, and I'm late.

Sliding her arm out from around my shoulder, I get up and look out the window. No sirens. No ambulances. Maybe I was right.

An 11-year old head pops up in my face, and I yelp. Katie turns over in her sleep.

"You fell asleep, didn't you?" Hit-Girl looks at me.

Right now, there are two women in my life.

A girl I'll never have and no longer want, pregnant.

A girl I'm scared of, and made an unspoken promise to keep alive.

Katie begins to stir.

"I'll meet you outside in five minutes." I whisper. Hit-Girl disappears just as quickly as she came. Katie sits up and looks at me.

"Dave, you ok?"

"No."

"Why?"

"Want a list?"

She stands up and moves to stand behind me at the window. It would be so romantic in any other sense, the way she keeps trying to hold my hand.

"Let's just sleep. I know you're tired."

"I can't sleep. Too much to do."

She sighs.

"What can I do, Dave?"

You can make the sun shine, Katie. You can wave your magic wand and turn all of my troubles into milk and honey for me.

Bring my dad back to life. Bring Mindy's back while you're at it.

Scratch that. Just go back in time and start talking to me when you thought I was straight and a creepy stalker.

Maybe then I wouldn't have put on a mask and done so much wrong.

"Nothing. Just leave me alone."

"You said you didn't get me sometimes. It goes both ways."

Fuck you, Katie.

"Fuck you, Katie."

She's shocked by it. It's been coming a long time, and I can't stop there.

"Fuck you, Katie." I repeat. "Leave me the fuck alone. I'm not going to hold your hand and pretend like I hold some kind of torch for you."

She goes to the door and opens it.

"You should go, then." She defies. She's not crying yet, but she's a moment away.

"Then I'll go. But stop lying to yourself."

"About what, Dave?"

"About the things you brought on yourself."

She is crying now.

"Like _what,_ Dave? Like what!"

It was all a game, wasn't it, Katie?

When you're a teenager, you can just fuck. You can just fuck and fuck and fuck and nothing bad will ever happen, no. STDs and babies are for the grownups. We're in the safe zone.

Remember those old posters of Sid Vicious? The ones that said 'Nobody is Safe'? They were speaking about AIDs, but the meaning carried on.

"Like your kid."

"Don't start, Dave."

"I haven't started anything. You're living in a dream world."

"Fuck _you_, Dave."

"I would have to pry that tissue from your hands first, Katie. Maybe instead of crying about everything, you should try growing up."

"I'm about to have a child, Dave. I _am_ growing up."

"No, you're not. You won't grow up until you stop blaming everyone else."

"...and you don't?" She whines.

"Not any more."

I go to the door. I feel like I have said enough, and I'm ready to leave it at that, but she hounds me all the way to the front door.

"I made mistakes. You don't have to be cruel."

I turn around at the front door, and she starts to close it. I stick my foot in the gap and put my hand against it.

"If you think I'm the cruelest thing you'll ever know, you've got a long way to go, Katie."

With that said, I let her close the door.

We've skipped the relationship phase and gone directly into the break-up. It's a relief, in it's own way.

Tomorrow, I won't have to ignore her calls.

~;~;~;~  
**Hit-Girl.**  
~;~;~:~

"So, is she your girlfriend now?" I ask him when he steps into the alley.

"I don't think so. It's not a big deal." He scratches the back of his head and begins to take off his shirt. His suit's underneath, and the mask is rolled up in the back pocket of his jeans.

He folds up the clothes and puts them in the Motorcycle's storage hatch.

"So, ready to go?" I ask.

"I guess."

~;~;~;~  
**Kick-Ass.**  
~;~;~;~

With the mask back on, I feel better.

A bit.

"So, ready to go?"

"I guess."

She puts her hands on her hips, eyes glowering at me through her own mask. Big Daddy's red mask is on her belt, hanging by it's strap.

She's ready for blood, I can tell by the things she carries.

"You guess? Well, I 'guess' we better get ready to die tonight, then."

"Just leave it alone. We'll get through this."

"You say that, but you're the one who's not willing to go through with it."

"I don't need a little kid reminding me that I'm still human, Mindy."

She huffs and starts to walk towards the motorcycle. I can't take two dismissive female confrontations in the same hour. I turn her around.

"Let's just go..."

"Go where? Home? There is none."

"So we go die instead?"

"No, we go live. Do what we're meant to do. Do something right."

You are so full of it, Mindy.

"You want to kill him."

"So do you. Otherwise, your Dad died for nothing."

"My dad died an honest man. What about yours?"

She goes to swing at me. I catch her wrist, the clack of our limbs together bounces off the alley wall. She yanks her hand from my grasp and I step back.

"It's because of you that they're both dead, anyway." She snarls.

Hit-Girl. Mindy. The only girl I've ever hit in my life, and that was a desperate blow to stop her from beating the crap out of me. Now, I want to hit her again.

"That's not true. Your dad brought it on himself. Worse. He dragged you into it."

"...and what about yours? Did he ask for what happened to him? At least I had a life with my dad. Can you remember the last time you even talked to yours?"

I do. He told me to always do the right thing, whatever I did in life.

He told me that he loved me. He asked me if anything was wrong, and I lied to him.

Truth is, I'm no different than Damon.

Hell, I'm worse. At least she was happy in the lie he built for her.

"I'm not going." I decide.

"Be a pussy then. You've been one as long as I've known you."

Shut up.

"Maybe I just don't want to kill anymore."

"Then be a victim. The world's a mean place.' She hops onto the motorcycle and kicks it into gear. "Tiber Meats by the waterfront, if you want to catch the bus."

She speeds away, looking back only once.

Pissed at everything in the world now, I start to walk down the street.

A black car stops at the end of the curb. The window rolls down, and the driver's side door opens.

Before I can react, the Larry Csonka lookalike grabs me and starts to pull me towards the car. When I try to pull away, he punches me in the back of the head, hurting his hand more than my skull.

He curses and shoves me against the door. I grab the baton from my back and swing, hitting him in the ear. He swears again and punches me in the stomach, then opens the door and kicks my legs out from under me.

He slams the door hard onto my head. Twice just for good measure. A third time for the throbbing pain in his ear.

Before I pass out, I feel him lifting me and propping me up in the passenger seat.

"Give you a bit of trouble there, Sam?" Someone says in the seat behind me.

"I've got it under control, Mr. Gigante. Got it under control."

_"If the truth doesn't save us, what does that say about us?"_  
~Pamela Ribon~


	15. Satisfaction could be

~:~:~:~  
**Kick-Ass.**  
~:~:~:~

The bucket on the edge of the desk is full of ice and the bottle on top is brown with a brown label.

I woke up in the car and when the car stopped, the driver opened the door and pushed me out. I got up and he walked around, grabbing me.

"I can walk." I complained, and he let me, but he kept his hand on my shoulder. The other man walked in behind us. I didn't see a sign, but the building smelled of cigarette smoke and sweat.

Bowmore. Most of the cars out there aren't as old as this stuff. 25 year label. He drinks it like gatorade, refilling his glass before he even speaks.

"They call me Gigante." He says. "Some call me other things. What do they call you?"

Many times, we hear a story about a really scary situation. We tell ourselves that in that person's shoes, we would have done different.

When we get there, it's a different feeling. We understand why.

The last time I was sure that I was going to die, Hit-Girl saved me.

Now, I'm supposed to go save her. But she can take care of herself, right?

"They call me Dave." I mutter.

"They call you Kick-Ass. Dave. The point is, you're Kick-Ass."

I'm Kick-Ass. It's been a while since I could say it to myself and mean it.

I'm not going to die. I don't think so, anyway.

"I used to work with a man. His name was John Genovese. He's dead."

Irony.

"I'm not dead right now, so that isn't a big concern for you." I tell him. "Unless it is your concern."

"Not for me."

~:~:~:~  
**Red Mist.**  
~:~:~:~

"I need a break from listening to you argue with your stupid broad. I'm going out to smoke." A voice growls downstairs.

In my ear, my self-proclaimed mentor tells me about the car on the way. A few more guys to keep an eye on things.

"If you really think it's necessary. Thanks, Uncle Carl."

I hang up the phone.

Something's not right about these last few conversations with Uncle Carl, but I let it pass for now.

Lights pass the windows and I hear car doors opening outside. I toss the comic into the silver case and put it on the bed. It's not nearly as full as it was before. I close the lock, neglecting to scramble the combination.

I go downstairs to greet the new help. I make it halfway before I hear gunshots.

So much for hello.

~:~:~:~  
**Hit-Girl.**  
~:~:~:~

I shut off the motorcycle's single light when I turn the corner and roll into the lot behind the building. It's a monstrosity of cheap metal and rust, not the kind of lair a true villain would claim for himself.

There's a dumpster by the ramp out back and I hide the motorcycle behind it, checking to make sure everything is ready. A voice shouts something unintelligible by the brick wall and I hear a door open.

The loading ramp is caked with permanent stains and runoff from the room has left a dark, greasy film on the entire slab. One of the guineas stands by the brick wall smoking a cigarette.

I move in quickly. A punch, a kick. He goes down easy. I take out the Kraton, slice the cartoid artery and turn his head away. It moves with a spurt of blood. The wall surrounds the entire lot, a steep slope of gravel and dirt is around the corner. There's a door, and it's been propped open with a brick.

Behind me, more lights turn into the lot. I duck down and peek around the corner. A long, long black car. The car doors open, one after another, and six men get out and enter the plant.

Not a setback. Just a challenge.

Bracing my palms against the wall, I slide down and catch myself at the bottom, grabbing onto the knob and turning into the corridor.

Big Daddy would be on a rooftop nearby right now, looking through his scope. My guardian angel. His mask taps against my leg, tied to the side of my belt. Right with me, where he loved to be.

There's voices ahead, but it's dark. I take the machine gun off my back and fire into the black in front of me. Nothing strikes the living.

Light is thrown into the room from above, a shadow walks down the steps. I shoot him and he falls down to the ground at my feet. Another head pops up at the top of the stairs and I take aim. Hot lead tears into the kevlar around my torso, a tear in the front of my suit to mark it's point of entry. It throws me back against the wall, but I know he's hit too. His feet go out from under him and two rounds tear into the ceiling, shaking dust down onto the landing above.

Alert Level, 100.00. There's shouting upstairs. No time to think of a new plan. Doors open and slam and footfalls go back and forth.

There was always that yellow tape. Miles and miles of the yellow tape with that repeated message of caution in big black letters, repeated over and over again. They won't have enough when I'm finished here.

The room at the top of the stairs is empty except for an abandoned card game. I catch movement in the corner of my eye and shoot the man that barrels in quickly. He flops onto the table and rolls over, staring up at me. Two more barge into the room and I dive to the left. The table's been tipped over by the recently deceased. It doesn't do anything for cover, slugs tearing through the felt and plastic with little strength lost, but they hesitate for a minute, and it's long enough to toss the automatic and yank out my handguns.

This isn't meant to be a solo job, but I think I'm doing pretty damn good at this point. Confidence, Mindy. They won't have it when they face us.

When I jump up to fire, one of them steps to the side, shoving another clip into his gun. My first shot takes him off his feet, slamming him hard against the doorway dividing the rooms. I step to the side and shoot him between the eyes, then shoot the other. Putting the handguns away, I reload the AR-15L and turn the corner.

Someone lunges out of the door to my left with a pistol. I catch his hand when he swings to bring the handle down onto my head, twisting hard and dislocating his thumb. He drops the gun and grabs for my hair, yanking the wig off my head.

Drawing back his fist with the wig still clenched between his fingers, he drives it into my face. There's a hot smear of pain through my right cheek and my eye throbs hard. He slams his foot down and I roll, slicing his Achille's Tendon with the Kraton.

I twist the blade with the next stab into his chest. He hits the floor, hard.

~:~:~:~  
**Kick-Ass.**  
~:~:~:~

"I've been out of the game for a while, but I kept my friends close after John died."

He looks at me in a different way. A cold stare with past loyalty and lost kinship staring through.

"...I didn't kill John Genovese. I didn't kill anyone." I manage.

Liar.

"Let's ask my friends. They know best."

He puts the speakerphone on and dials a number.

I didn't kill anyone then. Just any future siblings of darling Christopher.

Hit-Girl finished the job, like she always does.

A voice grunts a hello and Gigante smirks his way through an entire explanation. Behind me, his right-hand man and escort puts a hand inside of his jacket.

~:~:~:~  
**Hit-Girl.**  
~:~:~:~

The wig goes back on, a moment to straighten it on my scalp.

My eye is still throbbing.

Vendetta now, ice pack later.

Red Mist's room is upstairs. Big Daddy's silver case is laying on the bed. I try the locks and they open. Just comics.

You hear things, and sometimes you just have to know for yourself.

His Macbook is still on the desk, lid open and orange standby light blinking on the left side of the chassis.

I saw an ad for one of these once. A useless shell of aluminum and software that will be outdated in six months.

I shoot the monitor first, then the bottom half. It tumbles off the desk and lands on the floor by the bed. I shoot it again, and the orange light finally dies. Whatever grand plans or incriminating evidence it contains will never see the description of a police report.

I toss the drawers and find nothing but clothes, hastily unpacked. A full-size garment bag hangs by a hook from the door, unzipped and hanging empty. A pair of sneakers are tossed at the foot of the bed, another hook that would hold the keys to a car is empty.

I look out the window. Past the corrugated tin roof of the lower level, I can see a familiar red sports car under a buzzing light, moths circling. He's still here.

Of course he is. This is the fun part. The grandstanding confrontation we've all been led to. We can't disappoint each other.

I descend the stairs and take the next door. Through another dim hallway is the meat packing area. It stinks and the floor is wet, and I'm not alone.

Three of them crouch behind machinery. I am in the court of the Crimson King, but he is nowhere to be seen.

We exchange shots for a minute. I drop a clip in my haste and shove the last one into the underside of the AR-15L, loading. Another bullet hits me in the lower left side, hard enough to send me to my knees. I aim below and fire from left to right in short bursts. There are six knees in the room that are not mine but only one is struck, filling the air with screams and curses against every close relative I never knew. The air's full of charred gunpowder now. I stay low, lining up my sight with a quivering dark-haired skull.

Something moves to my left, near the large sheet of glass that separates the room from the manager's office. Red Mist clutches a machine pistol, leveled at me. He steps forward but doesn't fire, tucking something back into his belt.

The ones still standing take advantage of my hesitation and unload. I drop the machine gun and cover my head with my hands, running along the wall. The concrete and glass behind me shatters and cracks with every shot, a traced path of small explosions that sweep the room.

I jump onto the metal counter and roll forward.

~:~:~:~  
**Kick-Ass.**  
~:~:~:~

"Let him go." The voice wheezes.

Every time the voice speaks, Gigante listens as if his life depended on it. For the first time in a few days, the light at the end of the tunnel comes back on.

"What if Chris has Bobby Ball-Buster put the screws in him and he mentions my name? I'm not dying for the sake of your jobs."

"Our man on the inside said that Genovese's son doesn't have any intentions for him and the girl except for a good bullet in the head. Either way, he's of no real concern to us. Maybe he will take care of the brat for us. You never know."

"He's the reason you're in this mess. Him and his superfreak friends."

"As much as you ask questions, you seem to have a problem with simple orders. Maybe there is a reason for this."

"Yeah, maybe my daughter will stop stealing money out of my wallet to buy grass." He snorts. "Just make sure to mention my name to your man. Let him understand that I don't appreciate being put on the spot like this." He picks up the receiver and drops it back down on the hook.

He nods, and the door opens behind me.

Like a kid forced to wait for his parents to wake up before he can open his Christmas presents, Gigante sighs.

"Get the fuck out of here." He reaches for the bottle to pour himself another drink. I stand up and smash the bottle across his head. He screams and covers his face. The man at the door moves behind me and I kick the chair into his path. He shoves it out of the way and swings at me. I catch his arm and slam his head into the desk.

When he's out, Gigante comes around the desk at me and I put the guard's gun against his head. He steps back and I step forward after him, all the way to the wall.

"Fuck you." He says with a crack in his voice.

"Keys."

"Fuck you, punk. I got friends behind badges. They'll want to know who the mask shooting at them is. Word will get out."

"Then you know I should kill your stupid ass. Keys. Then sit down."

He sits down and tosses a key ring at me. I catch it. There's one of those letter cube chains with BRUCE on it hanging between a house key, a key to some kind of lockbox or tool chest and a car key.

My mask is on the desk. I put it back on, and then I feel better.

Time to leave. I won't have a thunderous exit or even a victory here, but the car's a Jaguar and brand newish. It handles well.

~:~:~:~  
**Hit-Girl.**  
~:~:~:~

I spin around and draw the handguns. At the other end of the bay, Red Mist jumps up onto a machine and levels his gun at me. I step forward. They stand and begin to stumble back, firing at me. One of their rounds misses spandex and protective biweave, actually parting the dark hair hanging around my eyes with a glance.

Red Mist shoots with more confidence than I expect. He fires at the floor in front of me. Instinct halts my legs, and my momentum throws me forward onto my knees. One of the pigs snarls and swings a size 13 at my face. I aim to shoot but he grabs at my face, yanking my own mask down around my neck.

I shove my forearm against his throat and slide the dull slide of the blade parallel to my sleeve. I raise the sharp side to do him in, and another kick connects with my shoulder, throwing me against the counter. Hands grab for my neck, I throw my head back and hear a crunch.

"CUNT!" The guinea screams, throwing me over the counter with a move of his hand. My knees slam hard into the metal awning, nerves screaming in pain.

I roll over onto my back. A fist collides with the other side of my face. Something warm runs from my nose. I taste blood. He draws his hand back and the others jump on my arms, tearing the guns out of my hands.

I put my feet against his chin and shove upward, hard. He holds me down at arm's length and punches me again. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Not again. Not this time.

I headbutt him when he leans down to punch me again. I swing my legs to the left and kick the muscle pinning my left arm down in the back of the head. With that hand free, I twist to the right and take the blade from my boot. He lets go and steps back.

On my knees now. My handguns, on the floor beside me.

Get up. Finish it. Three more. Red Mist. Home free.

Fuck, I'm tired. I drop the knife. My hands are shaking. The effort, adrenaline rush and blows I've suffered are enough to put out people much bigger than me.

Red Mist is running across the room now, the gun is still pointed at me but the bastard hesitates.

I grab the pistols and point them. Two hundred and ten pounds of angry meat blindside me from the left, taking me off my feet again. My head hits the floor on the way down, and I see spots in my vision.

"Don't fucking kill her!" The spawn of Scarface snarls, leaning down and pointing the gun at me, like he's contributed to this in any way.

Another blow, this time to the stomach. Hurts a bit. It's not necessary. Blood soaks into the bottom of the dark hairpiece. I hit my head hard.

"She shot me. She fucking shot me in the leg." Somebody bitches. The other two are the lucky ones. They'll share whatever inadequate reward awaits with this story to tell any friends Kick-Ass and I haven't killed by now.

"You'll live. Wrap it up tight and make sure she stays down. Kick-Ass might be here already."

Red Mist is smug now. At closer look I notice how dark his suit looks in the dim light, but that might just be the unconciousness settling in.

~:~:~:~  
**Red Mist.**  
~:~:~:~

It's fun to win this time.

It's more than fun. It's the kind of feeling I got after walking out of the premiere of The Dark Knight. Understanding that everything has led to a place. Call me a geek, but the analogy stands.

They toss her around a little bit, and the one with the busted knee gives her a few kicks for his own satisfaction. I let it go on. They've earned it. Dumb bastards, managed to do something almost right for once.

Uncle Carl calls back. I don't answer. It's not important now.

As another villain of the page once said, first you soften them up, and then it's showtime.

They drag all the bodies in the other rooms into the storage room downstairs and lock it. The dangerous little purple girl is a dried bloodstain on the floor of the office behind two inches of shatterproof glass in a steel frame.

They open the big steel door, and right on cue, twin lights turn into the lot.

"Downstairs. You'll come when you're needed." The fun I'm about to have is giving me the voice these grunts need to tell them what to do. They comply, two walking tall and one limping with determination.

Behind the glass, my father's killer starts to stand. She's not going to be in play for this one.

Into the lion's den, two feet walk. He stands in the doorway under the steel slab and looks around.

"Hit-Girl!" He yells. I'm out of sight against the wall on the second level.

I want to wait until the right moment to walk out and reveal the climax in this tale of bloody revenge to the tragic 'hero' faggot in green, but the pounding on glass below my feet threatens to ruin it.

He walks across the room and doesn't make eye contact with any of the pools of blood on the floor. The stench is not noticeable under so many years of slaughtered meat.

They took all of the girl's weapons, so all she can do is pound. Kick-Ass takes out that stick he carries on his back and slams it into the glass a few times, leaving nothing but a small scuff in the surface. The door is just as secure. The manager did not like to be disturbed, it would seem.

"Kick-Ass."

~:~:~:~  
**Kick-Ass.**  
~:~:~:~

Driving a Jaguar is a new experience for me. When this is all over, I want to look into one.

Hit-Girl, locked behind glass.

Mindy got to work, but I was too late.

It's an obvious trap, but my only thought is getting her out of her makeshift cell. I think about shooting the lock next, and I take the gun from Gigante's muscle out.

"Kick-Ass."

Red Mist is standing above me. I step back to look up at him. He presses one hand against his belt, the other at his side clutching a gun.

"Drop it." He waves his gun.

"Fuck you."

He fires his gun into the ceiling. Three bloody and battered but alive and obedient men enter the room with us. One of them crosses around the meat counters and slams the heavy steel door shut, throwing two large bolt latches into place.

Hit-Girl continues to pound on the glass. She looks like she's been taken to an inch of her life at this point but I know how tough she is.

The meaning of this entire thing sinks into me now.

The villain looks down at me again.

"I could have made her suffer even if you never came into this, Kick-Ass, but I'm grateful. You've been as much a part of this as you were of my father's death." He snarks.

"So my father wasn't enough in return, then."

"My father always said, tie up all your loose ends." He snaps his fingers.

They surround me.

"So let her watch. For a really long time. We can go all night if we want. We'll see how tough Daddy's little girl really is. When she begs me to kill you just so she doesn't have to watch you suffer anymore, you can watch what they do to her."

I don't know if Hit-Girl can hear him or not, but she's slamming her fists against the glass with her second wind. She's screaming, and I don't feel any better than she does.

"Real slow." He says, before he leans against the railing and begins to watch the show.

Now, I get to be a martyr.

The right revenge. Something I would have thought of in time.

Don't just take an eye for an eye. Go further.

When they're ready, it happens. Ready as I will ever be, I face it.

Metal plates. They've got their work cut out for them.

_"Life being what it is, one dreams of revenge."  
_~Paul Gauguin~


	16. This is where it begins

~:~:~:~  
**Hit-Girl.**  
~:~:~:~

If Daddy were here, he'd know what to do.

The glass separates me from Kick-Ass. He looks up above the office, and I can just hear Red Mist's gloating voice. The door is just as secure, but the crack underneath lets me hear.

He's going to die. Then I'm going to die.

The bad guys win sometimes too.

"...can watch what they do to her..."

Kick-Ass looks around. The three from before are circling him now. One of them is wearing my brass knuckles.

"Real slow." Red Mist says, and then they start.

~:~:~:~  
**Kick-Ass.**  
~:~:~:~

They move in, and I have time for one shot.

Behind me, the limping one raises a hand. I turn and shoot him between the eyes, snuffing him out quickly. To my left, brass knuckles swing hard, hitting me behind the left ear.

I drop the gun, swinging my baton and striking his leg. Another grabs me around the middle and throws me back to the ground hard. I stand, striking him in the side with my weapon before I swing it again to drive him back. I trip over the one I shot, falling on my face.

A booted foot stomps down against my back, throwing me down hard. I roll over and stand, facing them both now. Being thrown has moved my mask, blocking my vision. I take it off and drop it.

The one on the right starts to circle around me. He throws a left jab and then steps around and punches me with the right, throwing me back against one of the metal counters.

They each grab one of my arms and throw me back down hard. An arm grabs mine and turns me over. Punches begin to strike every inch of my face. A lifetime ago, they would have hurt.

When they wear themselves out, I get back on my feet, swinging wildly to clear a path. They pant and bend over, taking deep breaths. On the platform above us, Red Mist looks disappointed.

Hit-Girl is on her knees now, slamming the window again. She is crying, tears dripping down her face from below her mask. She screams every foul name in the book, barely able to be heard. Red Mist laughs.

"Good effort, but I want to see more." He says.

Something clicks in a hand, and a shiny switchblade is thrust at me. I turn to the side and it slices through the shoulder of my suit, missing precious flesh and bone.

I kick the knife bearer in the chest and slam the baton into the other mug's face, sending them both to the ground.

The gun is close. I run for it and snatch it up, turning around. The one with the knife lunges at me again. Before I can shoot, he slashes through the meat of my arm. I drop the gun again and blood marks my suit again, fresh blood to stain with the rest of the past few days' accumulation. Some mine. Some others'.

I kick him in the stomach, doubling him over, then slam my stick on the back of his head. It chips and cracks down the center from the force of the impact. My trademark weapons have finally bit the dust.

Another strike from behind. I don't go down this time. I spin around and slam my head into the attacker's skull. He falls down, out. I don't feel a thing.

Hit-Girl stops banging on the glass. She lays in front of the window, blood and snot dripping down her face.

Red Mist comes down the stairs now, standing on the sidelines.

"You fucking apes, you suck." He grumbles, tapping the machine pistol at his side against his leg with an impatient look.

With one dead and two out of the game, it's us now.

But there will be no final fight. No real confrontation. The coward is cornered.

I bend down to pick up the gun I dropped. He unlocks the office door and approaches Mindy.

She tries to stand, and he shoots her in the leg without a moment of hesitation.

Armor-piercing rounds. The funny red rounds in a gun held by the Red Mist.

He grabs her by the back of her suit and pulls her up. Her leg cannot support her. One hand is hard around her neck, forcing her to stand on her right. He presses the gun against her cheek hard enough to leave a small burn from the searing hot bore of the barrel.

He drags her out of the office, making his message clear. I point the gun at him over Mindy's shoulder.

I don't know for sure what will happen now, but he smirks when I hesitate. He grips the gun a bit tighter. She doesn't have the strength left to fight.

I toss the gun. He shoves her away and shoots her, then turns and shoots me. Lead tears through my shoulder and my gut, throwing me to the floor.

I try to stand. I manage to sit. There's a gaping hole in my belly. I can see things I shouldn't in there.

He levels the gun at my head and it clicks. Outside, there are sirens in the distance. He looks at the steel door, then back at the other exit.

With a laugh and a single, momentary look back, he runs.

I get up very slowly. This hurts more than being stabbed. More than anything in my life.

Hit-Girl lays very still on her back. Blood pools underneath her body, dripping through the blackened grout of the tile and swirling around the dirty drain next to her. She coughs, blood dripping from the corner of her mouth.

The handgun. Near me. I clamp a hand down hard on my stomach wound and pick it up. I walk back to her and drop to my knees. She opens her eyes and looks up at me.

"Finnnnnnnnnnnnn..." She speaks without a voice, lips forming a circle as her bruised and swollen eye sockets quivering with fresh, hot tears in pain that must truly outdo my own.

"Don't talk."

She takes a metal vial from her belt and grabs for my hand, pressing it into my palm.

"Finnniissshh the job..." She whispers.

Condition Red.

I turn the vial over, press my thumb to the release and hold the vial up to my nose, inhaling through the hole in the chamber.

This stuff is terrible. It burns and makes my entire head throb. The taste of pills chewed down without water is in my mouth and dripping down the back of my throat like a nasty, lumpy glue. The pain in my stomach is there, but it ceases to keep me on my knees.

Finish the job. Finish the job.

~:~:~:~

I catch up with Chris as I turn past the remains of a shot-up card table. Room after room destroyed, a sign of her passing. He fires over his shoulder at me, spending a few bullets from a fresh clip.

At the end of a corridor ahead of me, he pulls the door open and turns around. He fires another burst of ammunition at me, stitching a line in the cinderblock wall and raining dust down into the hallway. The industrial lights mounted on the walls fizzle and dim. I draw the gun from my belt and fire as he does. A round strikes his armor and he slams the door shut behind him, laughing.

The hole in my body continues to bleed. I keep one hand over it, tucking the gun under my arm to open the door. A hand gloved in red shoots out from around the corner and fires again. One round hits the door, leaving a mushroom-shaped bore on it's exit.

He takes a right at the next turn. I shoot after him, but my aim is not steady. Rounds bounce around his fleeing form. He slams open another door and I hear him ascending the stairs to the roof.

I aim up and level the gun with the back of his head. The next shot hits him in the shoulder as he turns, clipping meat and the material of his suit at once. The door slams in my path. I throw my weight against it and the knob on the other side cracks against the exterior wall.

Red Mist stops at the edge of the roof and looks back. We shoot again, almost at the same time. He takes another in the torso and stumbles forward onto his knees, squeezing the trigger. When he lands, the gun flies from his hand and clatters at my feet. I lunge forward and snatch it up, emptying the clip in his direction. It bucks higher in my hand with every spent round. A dotted line begins in front of him and crosses over his body, two of the cop-killers tearing into him.

He yells out in pain, and I drop his gun, throwing myself onto him.

"A FUCKING LITTLE GIRL!" I turn him over and drive my fist into his face. His hands grapple at mine, a desperate defense. I pull my hand back and punch him again, red dripping between the knuckles of my tan gloves.

His head hits the stone hard. His eyes roll back into his skull. One of his hands grabs my arm as I draw back for another swing. I put the pistol against his hand and pull the trigger. He screams again, his hand is now a bloody, shattered piece of meat. I turn the gun over and slam the handle into his face. He makes a low groan, almost like a dying animal.

"MY FUCKING DAD!" I scream, swinging the gun into his face.

I don't know how many times I strike his face with the gun. My body screams in pain, but I can't stop. It's a long time before I grab him by the hair and push the barrel against his head.

"FUCK YOU!" I pull the trigger. The contents of his skull splatter my face.

I shove the gun into his open mouth and pull the trigger again. "FUCK YOU, YOU PIECE OF SHIT!"

.

.

.

Your funeral will have red flowers. You wouldn't have it any other way, Chris.

Get up.

One more thing.

There's a very big hole in my stomach now.

Somebody lights a match under my insides. My intestines hang in a bundle around my waist, hanging through the hole in my stomach now. I close my eyes, biting down on the neck of my suit as I try to shove them back in.

My poor guts. They haven't asked for any of this. Any of this at all.

They won't all go back in.

A loop of small intestine escapes my fingers when I get back to the stairs. I lean against the railing, becoming aware of my own end now. I cough, and the world goes black for just a second. Blood from my mouth drips on the wall. At the bottom of the stairs, I feel vomit rising in my throat and I cough up bile and other sour things mixed with blood.

One more. One more thing.

The corridor is Everest. More of my innards escape my hands. Two hands, but I can't let go of the gun. My hand is frozen around it's grip.

Everything smells like blood. Everything is covered in blood.

So much pain. So much death.

I love you, dad.

Red and blue lights bounce through every dirty window in the building. A deep, bright light is swept across the ground floor. I stumble at the doorway of the meat room.

Lay here.

One more thing.

There's a noise near me. One of the two men that I knocked unconscious is waking up. Leaning up on my elbows, I shoot him between the eyes.

Up and back across the room. I almost stumble again over the last of the incapacitated hired help. I shoot him with my head turned away. As I step over him, something _pulls_, and then I step back and watch my boot come down on the small intestine that's become wrapped around the dead man's neck.

The pain cannot be described.

There's a voice with a megaphone, and I even hear a helicopter.

Hit-Girl lays where she is, eyes open and body very still except for the tremors of pain that force her into convulsions every few moments, fresh blood dripping from the holes that have ruined her last good suit.

I fall down next to her again. It takes a while to sit up.

She raises her head. All she can do. I use my hands to push myself closer to her, sitting up and resting her head in the crook of my arm.

"I wanna go home..." She says, finding the strength to talk again.

Not die at this age.

She won't die.

That's what's so tragic.

In a moment, they'll get the doors open. They'll come inside and take us away.

Some adrenaline, maybe some of that great morphine. Unmasked for the whole world.

Dave Lizewski, high school nobody.

"Tell me we're going home soon." She says.

"We'll go home soon." I tell her, holding her. She begins to shake again. I hurt, but I know she's suffering more, because at least I'm sort of going numb at this point.

I put my arm around her shoulders and hold her tight until it stops.

"We'll go home soon, and your daddy will come too." I keep saying to her.

She closes her eyes.

One more thing.

"Tell me more." She says.

"Your daddy will come and get you..." I say. "...and he'll be there again. Things will get better, because he'll be there."

"Go on. Tell me more." She says slowly.

The steel door at the end of the meat packing bay rattles on it's ancient hinges.

The gun is still in my hand.

"You won't have to go back to school... because he'll be there... and he'll make things fun..." I whisper to her.

"Yes..." She sighs.

"..and you'll do really good. He'll teach you a lot of nice things, and he'll be proud. He'll be proud of you."

Taken away to live and unmasked.

Mindy Macready. Eleven years old. Raised in blood. Orphaned by violence.

They'll fix us right up, and I'll go to jail.

She'll go away somewhere.

Somewhere with a locked door. Somewhere they can keep her away, because she is so tragic.

Some people are born sick.

Some people are made sick, and they can never get better.

Sometimes, they're really young, and the world is too big for them.

Sometimes, they try to fix it.

They try to be normal and it always falls apart, because they will never be anything but what they are.

"He said he was proud of me sometimes." She says.

The door's rusty chain lock gives without much of a fight.

The doctors call it Exsanguination. Common people call it bleeding out. Sometimes, you've lost too much blood.

Sometimes you lose enough blood to stop living, but not enough to die.

Until finally, it stops. The suffering stops. You like to think it will.

But you watch that happen to someone.

You think that a person's body has this limit. This threshold and line that it will cross at some point... where it will just numb. Just give in, and the suffering will end, but it doesn't.

Until you realize that your prayers and your hopes and your dreams are never going to change a thing. You know what you have to do.

Not because it's heroic. Not because it will make the world a stronger, loving place. Because no one else can.

God won't help, if he's even up there listening.

We don't show all of our pain all of the time.

_"I'm a fanboy, Dave. Just like you. Mindy died having no idea, but I'm just another asshole."_

One. More. Thing.

"He is proud of you, Mindy." I tell her._  
_

In all of this, I have learned about the things people do. Why we are what we are.

I understand, and I still believe that we're worth saving, through everything. Can you believe that?

There are people who have died, and then we've brought them back.

I press the gun against her head.

"Tell me." She repeats

"He's proud of you." I tell her.

Sometimes people die and come back.

"Tell me." She repeats again.

"He's proud of you. He's proud."

"Promise?"

"I promise, Mindy. He's so proud."

They tell us not to be afraid.

The door opens. Lights wash over us.

I draw the trigger back.

Life leaves Mindy and Hit-Girl forever.

The mask is laying close. Just where I left it.

I put down the gun, and I reach for it, putting it back on.

It is part of who I am.

This is who I am, and what I have created.

The lights come closer.

I don't let go of Mindy until strong arms pick me up and lift me away from her.

Her head falls to the floor.

At the end of the tunnel, there is a light that never goes out.

~:~:~:~  
**Red Mist.**  
~:~:~:~

When that moment comes, some of us take a step back, and re-examine our direction in life.

Some of us don't. They don't understand what it means to honestly want something.

To fight for it.

To die for it.

When he pulled the trigger, I died.

Liar.

At the head of the table, Uncle Carl lights a cigarette. He takes a drag and rests it against the side of the ashtray. A wispy curl of smoke rises through the light above the table and evaporates before it touches the lamps.

The rest of the room is dark. I stood there for the longest time, watching them. Understanding what had to be done.

What has to be done, is that we have to take a step back.

I remember the needles. They were sharp and wide and fastened to the machine that bore itself into the remains of my face. A stimulant was injected into my IV, keeping my brain alive while they dug out the slug. One shot had exited completely. The other had bore directly through my limbic system and ricocheted into the parietal lobe.

On either side of the table, the Elders are evenly divided. Four on either side, all staring at this stranger in the mask who stands, clutching not a gun or a bomb but a red folder stamped with a familiar symbol.

This is how we're going to do things now. We can't be the 'evil' ones in secret anymore. Not when they are out they in their masks, swearing to find people like us.

We're going to reveal ourselves. We're going to create something new, and they'll begin to realize the price of their career choices.

After my skull was clean of lead, the needles withdrew. The skin grafts would begin after the reconstruction of the left side of my face, and the back of my skull, where the worst damage had been done.

There were more needles over time. Machines working day and night, tubes feeding my body fluids and vitamins and precious oxygen.

You can fall off a building. You can be shot in the head or you can have a heart attack. Any way that it happens, we all die of the same thing. Hypoxemia. Low oxygen in the bloodstream. Essentially, your brain and heart choke without air to breathe.

If it happens for a few seconds, you can survive. If it lasts for longer than a minute, you can have irreparable brain damage.

They said I was legally dead for six and a half minutes. I remember nothing but darkness. When I opened my eyes, I could see more than what my eyes showed me.

"You all were invited here for a few reasons. Most important, business." I say to them. They hang on every word, but my voice, altered from the deterioration of my vocal cords in my coma, can still be recognized by the perceptive.

"Chris." Second on the left says.

"Red Mist." I correct. Somebody taps their drink down. "Alive, I'm sure you are all disappointed to know."

Third on the right stands up and looks at me. Uncle Carl leans back in his chair and smiles.

The body would have been a John Doe. Nothing left to identify by except for the remains of a tattered costume. It would have been biting details to slap next to the survival of a certain Dave Lizewski. Also known as Kick-Ass, vigilante and child murderer.

Within an hour, Dave Lizewski was identified, protective custody with a policeman posted outside of his hospital room door around the clock. Looking back at all of the blogs I missed, many different stories have made it to the web.

The general consensus - Kick-Ass wasn't what we thought, was he?

Kick-Ass' unmasking devoured the media. His grandparents refused to give a statement, but they got enough statements from people that stepped forward who knew him from school. They even got a friend named Martin and a girl named Katie Deauxma.

Nobody would have cared about the body in red unless it was identified.

But it never made the press. Money was given to expire interest. Nobody complained, and what was left of me was airlifted to a private hospital the next night.

I had help. I won't forget the ones that stayed loyal to my father. To me. None of the men in this room, of course.

What really got people going was what happened to Kick-Ass after that.

He disappeared from that hospital. Nobody has seen him since.

Except for a few rumors on the internet.

"I'm alive, and now I'm here to take back what's mine." I tell them.

I open the folder and turn it around. They lean up in their chairs, staring down at the contents.

From now on, we're going to do something none of the other families have ever thought of. We're going to become real villains.

They couldn't save my hand. A prosthetic was attached, painted and sculpted to be as lifelike as possible under my left glove. It has it's own quirks, but it does it's job.

Under the mask I wear, the left side of my face has been completely rebuilt. That pummeling with the gun did the bulk of the damage, the bullets rattling inside of my head did the rest. My left eye is now blue and lifeless, the ocular nerve scraped out with the rest of the dead skin and shattered muscle. Soon, they'll give me a contact so the pupils match, but I'll never see through the thing.

The cheekbone replaced with a synthetic material sculpted from organic coral. All of this modern science, and society has been stepping backwards all of this time. The cleft of my chin is gone, seventy percent of my jawbone reconstructed from scratch. Long, puffy scars in my scalp where epoxy has been bonded to the fractures in my skull, making it whole once more.

The eyepieces in my new mask enhance my depthless vision. The suit I wear is my own design, down to the red symbol in the center of the chestpiece. I put a hand against the bottom of the mask and slide it up. My face remains in shadow cast by the the lights above.

"Not all of you will be moving on with me. Some of you have to answer for your deception."

I realize now that I've been a giver for too long, letting them take what isn't theirs, and bending over for their own ideals.

Something my father would never consider. Something bigger than he could ever leave behind.

They're out there. On the internet. In back alleys. In parking lots and on street corners. People in masks, trying to do the right thing.

Some of them are like me. Some of them see the bigger picture.

They'll join us when the time comes, and being a superhero will become the most dangerous occupation in the world for the ones that don't.

"Now, Chris-" Somebody begins to protest.

"There's no discussion tonight. No other night now, either. You're obsolete."

I tell them what we're going to do from now on, and what it's going to mean for us.

Uncle Carl finishes his cigarette, and he stands up, heading for the door. I let him go. There will be another time.

They get up to leave. One by one by one, until only one stands at the table.

I put a hand on my left cheek and think about all of those surgeries and procedures that saved my mind. Dead for so long, I should be a vegetable. I am sane. I am aware. Every time I look in the mirror now, I see two sides of the world staring back.

This is who I am, and what I have created.

Outside, there is a world that can be taken piece by piece.

An army that can be formed. A war that can be fought.

"Chris, you should be dead." He says.

"I am dead." I answer him, a light smile.

"What do you mean?" He asks.

I turn my head to the light. He stares in a mixture of fear and disgust at what's become of my face.

"Well, half." I say.

_"The night is darkest just before the dawn. And I promise you, the dawn is coming."  
_~Harvey Dent~

~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~**  
END OF BOOK TWO.**  
~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~


End file.
